High Point Women’s Basketball Upends Charleston Southern, 71-54

HIGH POINT, N.C. – The High Point University women’s basketball team led all the way en route to a 71-54 victory over Charleston Southern on Thursday night at the Millis Center in High Point, N.C. Junior forward Cheyenne Parker led HPU with 25 points and eight rebounds and redshirt-sophomore Stacia Robertson scored 18 points on 8-for-10 shooting.

“It was good to be back in the Millis Center after over a month on the road,” said head coach DeUnna Hendrix. “We really executed the game plan. We knew coming in if we executed on the defensive end then the offense would come. We forced 22 turnovers by getting in the passing lanes and pressuring the ball. The team did a good job tonight fighting through the lulls in the game. They stayed relaxed and composed and didn’t get frustrated when Charleston Southern went on a run.”

Robertson added seven rebounds to her 18 points. Graduate student Kendra Wallace chipped in nine points and six rebounds and junior Tayler Tremblay added six points and six assists.

Shay Jones led the Lady Buccaneers with 16 points and six rebounds and Lakeitha Allson scored 12 points.

High Point improves to 8-6 overall and 2-1 in league play with the win. Charleston Southern drops to 5-6 overall and 0-2 in Big South games.

High Point opened the game with layups from Parker and redshirt-sophomore Lindsay Puckett for a quick 4-0 lead. At 13:31 DJ Fowler drained a layup to keep Charleston Southern within two, 12-10. The Panthers went on a 19-0 run to push the lead to 31-10 with 7:33 on the clock. Wallace capped off the run with back-to-back three pointers. Robertson had eight points for HPU in the run.

The Panthers biggest lead came with 3:36 remaining in the first half. HPU went ahead by 26, 42-16, when freshman Jatzmin Johnson hit her second basket of the night. The Buccaneers finished the opening period on a 12-0 run to cut High Point’s lead to 42-28 at the half. CSU went six-for-eight from the free-throw line during the 12-0 run.

Charleston Southern kept pace with HPU in the second half but couldn’t overcome the first-half deficit. Jones opened the second half with a three-pointer to get the Buccaneers within 11, their smallest lead of the period. Parker scored six of High Point’s next eight points to extend HPU’s lead back to 17, 50-36 with 15:55 remaining.

Parker scored the final eight points of the game for High Point and the Panthers won the game 71-54.

Parker added four blocks and six steals and Puckett had five points and five rebounds.
High Point will host Gardner-Webb on Saturday at the Millis Center. Tipoff is set for 3:30 p.m. The Panthers are 11-9 against the Runnin’ Bulldogs with a 7-3 mark against GWU in the Millis Center. High Point won both meetings with Gardner-Webb last season, including a 63-41 win at the Millis Center on Jan. 2.