Lady Hawks score season-high 80 points to pick up 13th win

LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN, Ga. – The Huntingdon women's basketball team turned in its best scoring performance of the season on Wednesday.

The Lady Hawks jumped on Covenant early and beat the Lady Scots 80-64. The 80-point effort is the highest scoring output for the Lady Hawks since an 83-82 overtime loss to Rust in Nov. 2009.

"Everybody was on tonight," Huntingdon junior Morgan Crawford said. "We all shot the ball well and we played good defense. We knew how important this game was and we didn't back down. I don't really think you could ask for a better all around team effort."

Huntingdon improves to 13-8 overall and 8-4 in the Great South Athletic Conference. The 13 wins are the most by the Lady Hawks since a 16-win season in 2008-09 and tied for third most in the past nine seasons.

"This is our 13th win, which is big, and the 80 points were nice," Huntingdon head coach Buzz Phillips said. "But more than those two things, I'm just proud of our overall play. We were up and down in the first half, but we played an excellent second half. The girls really turned it up after halftime and we shot the ball better tonight than we have in the past two or three games."

Huntingdon opened the game with an 8-1 run and led 20-8 a little more than seven minutes into the game. The Lady Hawks led 34-29 at the half. Huntingdon pushed back ahead to a double-digit lead in the first three minutes of the second half and led by as many as 22 points before closing out the game.

As a team, the Lady Hawks made a season-high 12 3-pointers.

Crawford led Huntingdon with a season-high 24 points. She hit five 3-pointers and also had five steals and four assists. Raven Prater added 12 points and seven rebounds and Chelsea Graham hit three 3-pointers and finished with 11 points. Tanjanik Munford pulled down a game-high 10 rebounds and LaTerial Williams finished with nine points, five assists and four steals.

Margaret Cross led Covenant (5-15, 4-8) with 14 points. Christine Core added 13 points and Morgan Woodward and Jessie Blankenship each scored 12 points.

The Lady Hawks now turn their attention to this weekend and two more GSAC battles. Huntingdon plays at Salem on Saturday at 1 p.m. and at Spelman on Sunday at 2 p.m.

"We need to win both of these games," Phillips said. "The girls know how important this stretch is and they know we have to play well."

The Lady Hawks need to win both games to ensure at least a fourth-place seed for the GSAC tournament. The No. 1 and No. 2 seeds advance to the GSAC semifinals. The No. 3 and No. 4 seeds host a GSAC quarterfinal game.

"This weekend is very important. We've got to pull through it," Crawford said. "I feel like we can do it. We're playing for the right to host (a quarterfinal game). That's something we want to do and it's something we're going to work for."