No. 16 Wallace State women’s basketball explodes for 100 points in dominating win over Chattanooga (Tenn.) State
HANCEVILLE – A 12-day layoff didn’t affect Wallace State’s women’s basketball team at all Tuesday night. The 16th-ranked Lady Lions exploded for one of their largest offensive outbursts in years, cruising to a dominating 100-77 victory over Chattanooga (Tenn.) State at Tom Drake Coliseum.
Multiple Wallace State players finished with career performances. Sophomore Morgan Pearson poured in a career-high 27 points off the bench, freshman Morgan Smith scored a career-high 21 points in only her seventh collegiate game and Jaylan Snowden added 12 points and dished out a career-best 14 assists.
“It’s good to get a win like this coming off Thanksgiving because we’ve had to sit on that East Mississippi loss for more than 10 days. You have to be pleased when your team scores 100 points. Everyone contributed, so that makes it a happy locker room. I told the team to enjoy this one because we’ve got to get back work Wednesday,” said Wallace State third-year coach Ron Burdette. “We were a little rusty early, but I challenged them at halftime to lock down on defense and we responded. We played much better defensively in the second half.”
Burdette, who served as a long-time Wallace State assistant before inheriting the head position, added he couldn’t recall the last time the women’s program reached the 100-point plateau.
The Lady Lions, who led 49-45 at halftime, hit the century mark behind a steady dose of 3-pointers, nailing 15 as a team. Pearson connected on four 3’s, freshman Amber Carey scored all 12 of her points, a career high, from behind the 3-point arc and six different Lady Lions accounted for at least one trey.
After averaging 8.2 points as a freshman, Pearson has provided a spark off the bench for Wallace State (5-2) during the young season. She had 14 points at the half against Chattanooga State and appropriately hit the final bucket for Wallace State to crack the 100-point mark.
“I feel that Morgan (Pearson) plays a whole lot better coming off the bench than when she starts because she can see the flow of the game. Morgan can shoot it as good as anyone on the team,” Burdette said. “I feel like we are very versatile offensively. We have confidence in almost anyone to step out and hit a 3-pointer. A girl like Amber Carey can also light it up like she did in this one.
“We’ve got to work on improving in the post even though Morgan Smith did a great job defensively on their top post player. Morgan is so smart and can do many different things that a normal post player can’t.”
Clinging to its four-point halftime lead, Wallace State opened the second half on a 19-7 run to pull away. Smith and Pearson then connected on back-to-back 3-pointers to extend the cushion to 74-54 with 13:04 remaining.
Chattanooga State only closed the gap to as little as 12 points the rest of the way.
Smith collected a team-high eight rebounds for Wallace State, while Jasmine Coleman contributed seven points and Brandee Busenlehner had six.
Simone Smith led Chattanooga State with 23 points.
Both Wallace State teams host East Mississippi on Saturday, beginning with the women’s game at 1 p.m. The Lady Lions are eager to avenge last month’s loss to East Mississippi.
“We are going to be ready to go. Our players want this game as bad as I do,” Burdette said.
For more information about Wallace State athletics, visit wallacestate.edu.
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Russell Moore
Staff Writer
Wallace State Community College
P.O. Box 2000, Hanceville, AL 35077
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256-339-2422 cell
Visit us online at www.wallacestate.edu