From the opening tip the Lee women's basketball team was raining down 3-pointers at Walker Arena en route to a 98-44 drubbing of Southern Wesleyan University on Thursday evening.
Leading the way was Julia Zimmerman who made her first six 3-pointers to help guide the Lady Flames to a 56-point first half explosion. The senior guard finished the game with 18 points and was 6-of-10 from behind the arc.
"Jules' (Julia Zimmerman) shooting blistered Southern Wesleyan right from the start," said coach Marty Rowe. "She came out on a fire and couldn't miss early on." As a team the Lady Flames shot a sizzling 62 percent (21-of-34) from the field in the opening stanza and hit 10-of-15 treys. For the game Lee shot 51 percent from the field and 48 percent from 3-point distance.
Hollie German continued to show why she leads the Southern States Athletic Conference (SSAC) in scoring (20.9 ppg). The junior scored 20 points and was 4-of-8 from 3-point land while getting a chance to rest after the Lady Flames opened up a sizeable margin.
"We had a good effort once again tonight out of a lot of kids," noted Rowe. "It was good to be able to give Hollie (German) some extra minutes off tonight with a couple of big conference games ahead of us. I thought our freshman played well tonight in extended action."
One of those freshman was Christina Johnson who recorded the first double-double of her young career registering 10 points and 10 rebounds. Jenna Adams tallied 15 points and added 11 boards, including six on the offensive end, to join Johnson with a double-double. Junior Myriah Iles rounded out the scoring with 11 markers. All totaled Lee had five players finish in double figure scoring.
Defensively Rowe's club limited SWU to just 22 percent shooting (11-of-50) from the field. The Warriors didn't have much luck from behind the arc either, hitting just three of their 13 attempts from downtown. The Lady Flames dominated the glass, outrebounding the South Carolina club 53-23.
Lee registered 24 assists as a team and had just 12 turnovers in the contest. Senior Brooke Hamby dished off nine of those assists to set the high-powered Lee offensive in motion. SWU managed just eight assists as a team and were guilty of 16 floor mistakes.
"It's too early to tell if this team is peaking right now, we'll know more when Karley (Miller) gets back, hopefully on Saturday. I actually think we played better against Coastal Georgia." admitted Rowe. Lee handed Coastal Georgia a 13-point defeat Monday in Brunswick, Ga.
The victory puts the seventh-ranked Lady Flames at 21-2 on the year and 11-2 in SSAC play. With the loss Southern Wesleyan falls to 10-13 overall and 4-10 in conference play.
Lee will be back in action on Saturday evening as SSAC rival Emmanuel College (14-8, 8-6) comes calling. Tip time is set for 5 p.m. at Walker Arena.
