Moore’s big day leads Brenau past Lady Knights

LAURINBURG — When an opposing player is putting on a clinic — it can be a pain to try and shut them down.

Such was the case for the St. Andrews Knights women’s basketball team Saturday as it fought to contain Brenau’s Nyla Moore, who produced 34 points and a career-high 15 rebounds to lead the Tigers to a 72-61 win.

“We just weren’t ready,” St. Andrews interim head coach Randall Johnson said. “We knew how good (Moore) was. She’s a driver first, and we just didn’t do a good job of staying in front or helping, whether it was zone or man. We did a little better in the man (defense) in the fourth quarter She was getting anything she wanted. And that just hurt us in the end.”

Moore netted the first eight points of the game for Brenau (9-10, 8-9 AAC) to get the Tigers out to an 8-6 lead; St. Andrews (6-14, 5-14 Appalachian Athletic Conference) led 4-2 early in the first quarter, but once Brenau claimed the lead at 6-4, the Tigers never lost it in the first quarter. However, Brenau never was up by more than four, taking a 16-14 lead into the second.

Brenau expanded its advantage to 22-14 less than a minute in the second, but a quick 7-0 St. Andrews spurt, which included four points from Ashley Starks, cut it to one. After hanging within four, St. Andrews fell behind 29-24 at the 3:45 mark after Brenau’s Ellie Kinlaw made a shot off the glass; Kinlaw made a 3-pointer on the ensuing Tigers possession, and Kayla Stafford finished the half with two layups to put the Brenau lead at 36-24.

”We let the second quarter get away,” Johnson said. “Second quarter just kind of got away, and then it just kind of (landslid).”

Brenau remained ahead 41-30 with 7:21 remaining in the third, and five straight points by Moore pushed it to a 16-point lead. Starks, however, kickstarted a 9-0 run for the Lady Knights with a layup, and the team outscored the Tigers 11-6 in the final 4:50 to end the quarter down 52-41.

“I told them (the Lady Knights) at halftime, we’ve got to cut the lead in half by the end of the (third) quarter,” Johnson said. “We won the quarter, I think by one (17-16) … which wasn’t enough. (Kinlaw) made big 3s for them twice at the end of that third quarter. And I think that hurt us a lot.”

Despite several attempts to draw closer with added momentum from the home crowd, the Lady Knights couldn’t get their deficit to less than eight in the fourth; Brenau never led by more than 13 until 10 seconds remained when Alana Veiga’s two free throws made it 72-58; St. Andrews’ A.J. Price was fouled on a layup she connected on the next possession and completed the three-point play at the foul line, which ended the scoring for the contest.

“Down the stretch, we didn’t get as good of a look as we needed to get, and we missed some shots,” Johnson said. “In the first half, for example, we missed nine layups. That’s 18 points. Fourth quarter, we missed about two or three more. And we were missing some that they (the Tigers) were making. So when you add those things up in a basketball game, it’s just going to go wrong for you.”

Price scored 21 points, with nine coming at the free-throw line for St. Andrews; Emily Cruz scored 16 with nine rebounds and three steals; Starks finished with 13 points and five rebounds and Madison Larrimore scored five points and grabbed 13 rebounds.

Kinlaw finished behind Moore for the Tigers in scoring with 17 points, including five 3s; Anna Gilatta scored eight points with four rebounds and Stafford had four points, 14 rebounds and two blocks.

The loss for the Lady Knights was crucial for their hopes of making the AAC tournament, with only the top 10 teams rewarded a spot; St. Andrews is at 12th in the conference after Saturday’s loss and would need to win two of its last three games with some help from Union (5-12 in AAC) and Columbia (6-10) above the Lady Knights to get to at least 10th.

“We win this game, we had a chance to win one more and possibly get to the (tournament),” Johnson said. “Everybody knew the goal. That’s why they were not only dejected about losing the game but dejected with the fact that they know the (tournament) hopes are slipping just a little bit. My main thing to them is to fight to the end. We don’t know what’s going to happen after that.”

The Lady Knights play their home finale on Feb. 10 against Reinhardt.

Brandon Hodge is the sports editor for The Laurinburg Exchange. He can be reached at 910-506-3171 or by email at [email protected]. Follow him on X/Twitter at @BrandonHSports.