HIGH POINT, N.C. – Senior Erin Reynolds scored 24 points with 11 assists, notching the 1,000th point of her career as the High Point University women’s basketball got an 85-76 win over East Tennessee State to open the season on Saturday at the Millis Center. Junior Cheyenne Parker scored 28 points with 13 rebounds.
Reynolds’s 11 assists were her career high and she also had six rebounds and four steals. She went 10-for-10 from the free throw line. Parker’s 28 points were a career high and came on 12-for-16 shooting from the floor. She also had five blocks. Graduate student Kendra Wallace went 4-for-8 from three-point range and scored 14 points. Sophomore Lexi Patterson was also in double figures with 10 points.
Lady Bucs guard Destiny Mitchell scored 26 points to lead ETSU. She shot 11-for-15 from the floor. Brianna McQueen scored 18 points with six rebounds and four assists and Serna Clark scored 11 points with five rebounds.
The teams went back and forth early in the first half, with High Point leading 12-9 with 12:25 remaining. East Tennessee State scored the next nine points, bookended by layups from Mitchell, to take an 18-12 lead. HPU’s Reynolds scored the next four points all on free throws, the last one giving her 1,000 points in her career.
ETSU maintained the lead until there was just over four minutes left in the first half. Parker completed a three -point play to tie the game at 29-29. After ETSU’s Mitchell hit a layup, Parker hit a pair of free throws to start a 14-6 HPU run that gave the Panthers a 43-37 lead at halftime.
High Point led the entire second half, extending the lead to 70-60 on a Reynolds jumper with 6:35 remaining. A layup by ETSU’s Serena Clark and a jumper by Mitchell began a comeback for the Lady Bucs, who closed the gap to 72-68 with just under four minutes to play. However, five points by Reynolds and a three-pointer by Wallace in the final 2:13 sealed the victory for the Panthers.
Reynolds became the High Point University women’s basketball program’s 15th 1,000_ point scorer and the sixth in the Div. I era. She also set the HPU Div. I-era record for free throw shooting with her 10- for- 10 mark. The previous record was 9-for-9 set by Katie O’Dell set on Nov. 19, 2004.
Next up, The Panthers will hit the road to play their second-straight Southern Conference opponent when they take on Furman on Tuesday at 5:30 p.m. The last time High Point and Furman met was Dec.4, 2002, a 52-51 HPU win.