Huntingdon women knock off Spelman for second conference win

MONTGOMERY, Ala. – The Huntingdon women's basketball team controlled the tone Tuesday night, but Spelman didn't go quietly.

The Lady Hawks built a lead early but couldn't put Spelman away until late in a 65-52 win.

Huntingdon (8-8, 2-1 Great South Athletic Conference) built a 10-point lead at halftime and led by 21 points early in second half before Spelman (2-12, 1-2 GSAC) rallied to make it a 10-point game with 7:02 left. The Lady Hawks regrouped, pushed their lead back to 17 points in the final six minutes and closed out the game.

Patricia Pickens led Huntingdon with 21 points, six rebounds and seven steals. Raven Prater added 14 points and six rebounds, Tanjanik Munford turned in a career-high 14 rebounds and Morgan Crawford finished with eight assists.

"Spelman does not play like a 2-12 team. They have a good team and their two post players gave us trouble," Huntingdon head coach Buzz Phillips said. "We couldn't put the game away. We built a good lead early in the second half but Spelman came back and cut it to 10. Fortunately we were able to push our lead back out.

"The good thing is we got the win to even our overall record at 8-8 and we picked up our second conference win. The team we have is not one that is going to blow people out. We have to rely on a team effort. We played 11 girls tonight and it took all of them to get the win. We're going to need a continued team effort as we move forward. We have a big test at Covenant on Saturday that will help us find out what we're made of."

Huntingdon plays at Covenant at noon on Saturday.