Lady Braves pull away to top Mount Olive

PEMBROKE — The UNC Pembroke women’s basketball team shook off a shaky first quarter and pulled away over the course of the game for a convincing 72-44 win over the Mount Olive Trojans Wednesday night.

The Braves improved to 14-6 and 9-2 in Conference Carolinas action.

“Here’s the thing about anybody you go against, you can’t simulate what they do in practice,” UNCP coach John Haskins said. “Let’s switch and deny, that’s something Mount Olive practices every day. So, I think it took us a while to get accustomed to and what we can do to attack that. We did a really good job whether it be in transition, and I think everybody made 3s so it was all that added to that so that was a bonus.”

Mount Olive (5-13, 3-7 CC) started things off by taking the 5-4 lead early and it was back and forth before the Braves put together a series of runs to start pushing their lead out. UNCP lead 20-12 heading into the second quarter.

The Trojans started to chip away to start the second quarter before the Braves got things rolling again to take a 24-16 lead with 4:33 remaining in the first half. The Braves closed the first half in a positive direction with the 39-21 lead heading into the locker room.

Mount Olive started the second half on a 6-0 run to start to slowly chip away at the lead making 39-27 with the Braves still in control. The Braves responded with a run of their own putting together a 8-2 scoring surge pushing their lead out to 47-29, and took a 55-37 lead heading into the fourth quarter. The Braves finished things off in the fourth quarter for the win.

“They (Mount Olive) want to get out of control, and I think with us like settling down and looking to see who’s open helped us out tonight,” Courtney Smith said.

Kalaya Hall led the way for the Braves finishing with 23 points and six rebounds, Malea Garrison followed providing a spark off the bench 10 points. Smith finished the night with nine points.

“Just being patient and taking what they gave you, they play spread out. So just really attacking and find the open man,” Hall said.

The Braves hit the road for a conference matchup with Emmanuel at 2 p.m. Saturday.