CLEVELAND, Tenn. - Reserves played a major role in Lee's 79-56 victory over Auburn University at Montgomery inside Walker Arena on Saturday afternoon. Abby McFarland came off the bench to tally a career high 18 points in leading the Lady Flames. Only two Lee players scored in double figures, but eleven got into the scoring column. The Lady Flames outscored AUM 39-6 in points off the bench.
Anna Muhonen followed with 12 points and played less than half of the game after getting into early foul trouble. Libby Privett totaled nine points while Bailey Burgess, Baylee Delbridge and Callie Brewer added eight points each. It was also a career high afternoon for Brewer who came off the bench to hit a key 3-pointer right before the first half ended and connected on another trey at the beginning of the third quarter.
Milah Williams battled hard on the glass and pulled down eight boards to lead the Lady Flames. Burgess had six and McFarland finished with five as Lee outrebounded the Warhawks 38-37. Kara Williams joined her sister Milah with four assists. The Lady Flames finished with 20 assists to only eight turnovers while forcing AUM into 13 floor mistakes.
Lee shot a solid 42% from the field (27-of-65) and 35% from 3-point range (10-of-29). With McFarland hitting 8-of-8 attempts, the Lady Flames converted 15-of-18 free throws.
The visitors led 16-15 at the end of the first quarter, and the contest remained close with Lee getting the 3-pointer by Brewer to take a 31-29 lead at halftime. The third period was a huge difference in the outcome as the Lady Flames outscored the Warhawks 26-11 and grabbed a 57-40 lead.
Samya Brooks paced the AUM scoring with 20 points. She missed her first two free throws of the season and finished 6-of-8 from the charity stripe. Overall, the Warhawks cashed in on 19-of-24 free throws. Tamora Brown followed with 17 points and led her team in rebounding with six. Overall, AUM shot 34% (18-of-33) and took only three shots from beyond the arc and converted one.
Lee improved to 2-0 in GSC play and 5-1 overall. AUM remained winless 0-2, 0-8. The Lady Flames face their first conference road challenges on Thursday and Saturday. The will first travel to West Alabama for a 6:30 tip and then move back up to Alabama Huntsville for a weekend 3 p.m. start.
Coach Marty Rowe's thoughts:
"Our effort and sense of urgency was much better today, even with us getting off to a slow start. AUM did a good job of disrupting our offensive flow early with their zone, but as the game wore on, I thought we did a really good job of attacking gaps and being ready to shoot. Our bench gave us a big lift today. We had multiple uplifts from the team with energy on both ends of the floor, which is a great sign moving forward. We want to take advantage of our depth but it needs to continue to be consistent. This weekend was a nice way to start conference play, but now we'll have to regroup and get ourselves ready for our first road tests."
