Playing with plenty of passion and fire, the Lee women's basketball team outscored Union University 19-5 in the first quarter and led 38-16 at the halftime break in advancing to the semifinal round of the Gulf South Conference Tournament with a convincing 72-58 victory over the Lady Bulldogs inside Walker Arena on Tuesday evening.
 
With the win, the Lady Flames advance to play Valdosta State on Saturday afternoon at 3:15 p.m. (EST). The final two tournament rounds are being hosted by Samford University at the Pete Hanna Center. Advance tickets are on sale and can be purchased by going to the GSC website, resulting in a 20% ticket savings.
 
"I thought we came out and defended with purpose and energy and that was key to getting out to the big lead," said coach Marty Rowe after scoring his second victory of the season over rival Union. "It was also a great way for our girls to celebrate our 20^th win of the season." The Lady Flames dominance showed by leading by as much as 31 points with 9:18 remaining in the final period.
 
While the Lady Flames were knocking down 47 percent of their shots in the first half and an even better 50 percent in the second 20 minutes, the defense was holding Union to 21 percent from the field in the first quarter. Usually an outstanding shooting 3-point team, Lee held Union to only 11 percent from beyond the arc in the first quarter and never looked back.
 
"Union is certainly better than the sixth seed," noted Rowe. "They are one of the top teams in our league so we knew we would need to play well for a full 40 minutes. It's hard to keep a big lead because they had to just start playing with reckless abandon but I thought we held our poise to finish it off."
 
Poise was the name of the game as the Lady Flames got contributions from all eight players. Shelby Brown stepped up with an outstanding effort, making 9-of-10 shots from the field and 2-of-3 triples. She grabbed seven rebounds in her 20-point effort.
 
Freshman guard Abby Bertram directed the attack for almost the entire 40 minutes. She tallied 18 points and dished off eight assists, shooting 7-of-15 from the field and 2-of-3 from 3-point range.
 
Erin Walsh kept the Lady Bulldogs on their heels by making three key 3-pointers. She tallied 12 points. Carrie Cheeks followed with nine points and eight rebounds, while Lindsey Roddy finished with seven markers and Taylor Boggess joined Haley Cornellison with three points apiece. Cornellison also had four assists.
 
The Lady Bulldogs were able to convert only 6-of-21 triples, usually a trademark of a Union club. They finished the contest shooting 35 percent overall and did capitalize from the charity stripe hitting 4-of-19 to only 5-of-8 for the Lady Flames.
 
Sarah Lytle had 17 points to spark the losers. Jada Smith was the only other Lady Bulldog in double-figures with 13 points. Bria Gaines paced Union's rebounding with nine boards as the Lady Flames completely dominated the glass, 41-28.
 
Shortly after the game, Coach Rowe had already started thinking about a re-match with Valdosta State, a 66-41 winner over Delta State. "We don't need to look at a scouting report much with Valdosta. We just played them and we know what we need to do. I feel really good about where we are at right now. Even though we lost the two games on the road (to West Florida and Valdosta State), we played well enough to win both," injected Rowe.
 
West Florida defeated Christian Brothers and West Georgia downed North Alabama to earn the final two spots in the semifinal round.