Huntingdon women’s basketball falls to NAIA Point University

MONTGOMERY, Ala. – The Huntingdon women's basketball team rallied in the second half Monday night but could not catch Point University in a 70-57 loss at Roland Arena.

Huntingdon (4-1) struggled early as the Skyhawks (7-7) took a 12-1 lead in the first four minutes and a 40-27 lead at halftime. Huntingdon fell behind by 21 points early in the second half but used a 15-2 run to get back in the game.

Following a Pat Pickens basket, the Lady Hawks trailed by eight, 53-45 with 7:27 left in the game. But that was as close as Huntingdon could get. Point eased back ahead to close out the game.

"Point is a very talented NAIA team," Huntingdon head coach Buzz Phillips said. "We knew we would have to play a mistake-free game to have a chance of winning and we didn't do that. We turned the ball over 34 times and Point had a lot to do with that. But we also made a lot of mental errors that were our fault.

"But I'm proud of the way the girls battled in the second half. We challenged the girls at halftime and we worked our way back into the game and cut it to eight points. But we didn't have enough to close the gap."

Pickens led Huntingdon with 17 points and Tan Munford finished with 12 points and 13 rebounds. In her first game with Huntingdon, Arbanee Dean pulled down 10 rebounds.

Phillips said he was also pleased with the play of point guards Jello Weatherspoon and Jai'Lyn Lover.

"We're going to be without point guard Eisha Person for the rest of the season, but Jello and Jai'Lyn both did some good things for us tonight," Phillips said. "We've still got work to do, but I saw plenty we can build off of."

Huntingdon returns to action on Thursday at Wesleyan before traveling to North Carolina for its first two conference games this weekend. The Lady Hawks open conference play on Saturday at Greensboro and play at Methodist on Sunday.

"We scheduled Point knowing it was going to be a challenge," Phillips said. "With conference play starting this weekend, we wanted a good test to close out December and help us get prepared. As we get into conference play, competition like this is going to be a fact of life and we better be ready to play each game."