CLEVELAND, Tenn. - After going 6-0 in preconference action and being ranked No.2 in the College Sports Communicators South Region Poll and No. 13 nationally in the CSC NCAA DII poll, the Lee University women's basketball team will open Gulf South Conference play on the road at the University of Montevallo on Thursday (6:30 EST) and move on down to face Auburn University at Montgomery on Saturday (3:00 EST).
Montevallo has faced a tough schedule and stands at 2-3 with South Region defeats to No. 1 ranked Embry-Riddle and No. 3 ranked Nova Southeastern. The third loss came to Spring Hill (Ala.) while the wins were against former GSC member Shorter and University of Tennessee-Southern.
The Lady Flames opened the season with key wins in Florida over Rollins and host Florida Southern. Coach Rowe's club continued the road adventures with an impressive win at Emmanuel University and began play inside Walker Arena with three victories.
Graduate student Mallory Hampton is off to another good start averaging 18 ppg and shooting well over 59% overall and from 3-point range. Senior Haylee Johnson tallies 10 ppg and has dished off a team-leading 27 assists. Senior Anna Muhonen scores 9.3 ppg while Addison Smith leads a balanced team in rebounding 5.8 per start. Nine Lady Flames are averaging double-figure minutes of playing time.
The Falcons feature a balanced scoring attack. Jordan Gillies is the leader in scoring (11.6 ppg) and rebounding (6.0 rpg). Isabel Grimes follows at (10.6 ppg). Lia Edwards was off to a solid start for the Falcons but has not played in the last two games after averaging 11 points in three contests.
The Warhawks of AUM have a new coach in Ashlee' Phillips. Her club is off to 2-3 start and like Montevallo lost to the Florida powers in Embry-Riddle and Nova Southeastern. The other loss was to Lincoln (Missouri). The wins are over Lander (S.C.) and Spring Hill (Ala.).
Much like the Montevallo team, the Warhawks have played without one of the GSC's better players, Allasha Dudley since the third game. She was averaging 16 ppg in those three outings. Samya Brooks is averaging 13.2 ppg while Danielle Luckey is cleaning the glass to the tune of 9.4 rpg.
Both games will video stream on FloCollege, and fans can listen on the Lee Flames Sports Radio Network. Thursday's game will be on ESPN Cleveland 101.3 and Saturday's game will be on WCLE 99.1.
Coach Marty Rowe's Thoughts:
"We're excited to get the conference schedule started but these are two good opponents we open with on the road. They both have played challenging early schedules, so we will need to play well to put us in a position to be successful.
"It is two programs within our league that have good young coaches and there is reason to believe they are only going to get better over the next several years.
"We accomplished everything we wanted in the pre-conference schedule but now it is time to really see where we are at as a team."
