Women’s basketball falls at Birmingham-Southern

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – The Huntingdon women's basketball team battled Birmingham-Southern but came up short 71-60 on Thursday night.

Huntingdon (0-2) only trailed by four points with 5:53 to play but Birmingham-Southern (1-1) closed the game with a 12-5 run.

"I thought we played better tonight. We played hard the entire game," Huntingdon head coach Buzz Phillips said. "We still have to find an outside scoring game and we have to make more of our free throws. But we will go back to work and get ready for a very good Rust College team on Tuesday."

Huntingdon was 14-of-22 from the free-throw line and Birmingham-Southern was 26-of-34.

The Lady Hawks got off to a strong start as senior Pat Pickens scored 11 of Huntingdon's first 13 points to help the Lady Hawks build a seven-point lead in the first six minutes of the game. But Birmingham-Southern answered and took a 32-31 lead into the half. The Lady Panthers led the entire second half, but didn't put the game away until the final minutes.

Pickens, who scored her 1,000th-career point in Monday's season opener, finished with 17 points, 14 rebounds, four assists and three steals against Birmingham-Southern. She now has 1,019 career points and is just the third Lady Hawk to reach 1,000 career points.

Tierra Henry added 16 points and seven rebounds, Juliette Harp had nine points and nine rebounds and Mackenzie Garmany had nine points. Tan Munford pulled down seven rebounds and Jenna Dorman had four steals.

Huntingdon returns to action at home on Tuesday against Rust College at 5 p.m.