The Lady Knights are 1-6 with six consecutive defeats after winning their season opener versus the Newport News Apprentice School back on Nov. 15. Lees-McRae evened its overall record at 4-4 while climbing over .500 (2-1) in conference play with Saturday's win.
Leading the way for St. Andrews on Saturday was center Kayla Hay; the 6-foot-3 junior had a team-high 15 points on 6-of-10 shooting and led all players with 14 rebounds (five offensive).
Freshman Septembra LeSane made 5-of-7 shot attempts and had 13 points, five boards and a team-high four assists. Kristen Zipken had 11 points, seven rebounds and three steals before fouling out with just over a minute remaining in the game.
The Knights had a tremendous day on the offensive glass, collecting 20 offensive rebounds while out-rebounding LMC 45-34 overall. Both teams turned it over 34 times, and free throw shooting favored SAPC just slightly (17-of-23, compared to 14-of-22 for the Bobcats).
In a four-point game, it is the little things that can be looked back on as the difference between victory and defeat. An inbound pass thrown across the court and back out of bounds near the scorer's table while not coming anywhere near a St. Andrews player, and a pair of occasions where SAPC players dribbled the ball off their own leg and out of bounds are a few of the small things that hurt the Lady Knights in the second half on Saturday.
St. Andrews trailed Lees-McRae 36-27 at halftime. First-year SAPC head coach Jessica Vanco thought her team's inability to take care of the ball in the first half is what cost the Knights the game.
"I thought, offensively, we did a great job [down the stretch]. We just weren't making shots," said St. Andrews head coach Jessica Vanco. "We won the second half, and we came out strong.
"Our defense, we did a great job defensively. We just needed to take better care of the ball in the first half, and that was the difference in the game."
St. Andrews worked to chip away at the deficit throughout the second half. LeSane scored and was fouled following a steal and assist from Jaquese Smith with 12:31 remaining. LeSane rebounded her own missed free throw and hit a jumper to cut the Bobcats' lead to 48-43.
The lead grew to double digits for the only time in the second half on a 3-pointer by Chahkia Harrison that made the score 55-45 with 7:32 to play. The Knights got the lead down to five on a pair of free throws by Zipken at the 2:38 mark.
Lees-McRae's Ashley Holland missed a pair of free throws with 1:08 to go, and Kaela Allison found Hay, who hit a little 6-footer to make the score 65-62 with 1:01 to play.
Holland missed a pair of shot attempts for the Bobcats, and Hay missed at the other end. Cortney Furr was fouled and converted 1-of-2 free throws to put the Bobcats up 66-62 with eights seconds left. Allison's turn-around 3-pointer at the buzzer was partially blocked.
Holland led Lees-McRae with 17 points, six rebounds and five assists in 30 minutes. No other Lady Bobcat had more than six points for five rebounds, but all 12 LMC players who saw time scored.
St. Andrews outscored LMC 17-0 in second-chance points. The Knights also got 25 points from its bench, led by LeSane's career-high 13. Brittany Roberts had six points on 2-of-9 shooting off the bench for SAPC. Smith had six points, four steals and seven turnovers for St. Andrews.
The Lady Knights played at Limestone on Monday at 5:30 p.m. Results of this game were not available by press time on Monday night.
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