Greensboro College Pride Women Shine In Victory Over Monarchs In Home Opener:Katie Lewis(Southeast Guilford HS) sets the tone with 19 Pride points

Pride Women Shine In Victory Over Monarchs In Home Opener
Courtesy of Wes Gullett, Greensboro College Sports Information Director

GREENSBORO, N.C.Katie Lewis(Southeast Guilford High School) tallied a game-high 19 points as the Greensboro College women’s basketball team coasted past the Monarch of Methodist University in USA South Athletic Conference action Wednesday, 79-57.

Methodist quickly raced out to a four-point lead just two minutes into the first period before the Greensboro offense began to come alive with a 6-0 run to take their first lead of the contest at 9-7. Lauren Jenkins fueled the run by recording two rebounds on the offensive glass before tallying all six points.

Following the Greensboro run, the Monarchs were able to reestablish a four-point advantage briefly before the Pride offense exploded on a 30-8 run to take a 44-26 lead into halftime. The run lasted the final 80 seconds of the first period and the entire second period.

“As the first half progressed we were able to get into our rhythm and move the ball around really well,” Lewis said. “We are continuing to mesh together as a team each and every day. We just played good hard basketball.”

Lewis recorded nine points during the run on three three-pointers, while Rasheika Gregory, Kylee Barry, Kamerin Williams, Domonique McCoy and Jenkins combined for 20 points.

After the break, the Greensboro offense did not let up, while the defense was able to force the Monarchs into nine second-half turnovers.

Over the first four minutes of the third period, Greensboro used an 11-5 run that featured four points from Williams to take a 55-31 lead with 6:08 showing on the clock.

Greensboro continued to pull away from Methodist over the next eight minutes before Lewis converted on another three-point play to give the Pride their largest lead of the game at 75-44 with eight minutes left in the game.

The Pride offense then began to slow down, but the deficit proved to be too much for the Monarchs as Greensboro was able to seal the 22-point victory.

“Our goal is not to let up the entire game,” Head Coach Randy Tuggle said. “If you look at the box score, we had several players contribute each time that they hit the court tonight and that really shows in the stats as we had four players score in double figures, despite only one of them playing over 20 minutes.

“I hope that we can continue our momentum tonight for the remainder of the season as we did not have those times where we let up and then went hard again. The girls stayed focused on what we set out to do tonight.”

Williams finished with a double-double of 12 points and 10 rebounds, while Jenkins finished with 14 points and seven rebounds. Gregory also finished with 10 points, while Laprecious England dished out eight assists.

The Pride women will return to action at 2 p.m. Sunday when they host the Cougars of Averett University. For more information on Greensboro College women’s basketball, continue to follow www.greensborocollegesports.com.