Jamicia Davis takes a contested jump shot during the Knights’ home victory over Bluefield on Saturday afternoon. Davis led St. Andrews in scoring with 15 points. 
                                 Andrew Smolar | The Laurinburg Exchange

Jamicia Davis takes a contested jump shot during the Knights’ home victory over Bluefield on Saturday afternoon. Davis led St. Andrews in scoring with 15 points.

Andrew Smolar | The Laurinburg Exchange

<p>AJ Price (15) dribbles the ball up the court. Price had eight rebounds to lead the team.</p>
                                 <p>Andrew Smolar | The Laurinburg Exchange</p>

AJ Price (15) dribbles the ball up the court. Price had eight rebounds to lead the team.

Andrew Smolar | The Laurinburg Exchange

<p>Londaisha Smith (1) attempts a free throw during the Knights’ matchup with the Rams. Smith had 14 points in the team’s victory.</p>
                                 <p>Andrew Smolar | The Laurinburg Exchange</p>

Londaisha Smith (1) attempts a free throw during the Knights’ matchup with the Rams. Smith had 14 points in the team’s victory.

Andrew Smolar | The Laurinburg Exchange

<p>Jamicia Davis plays defense on a Bluefield player looking to drive to the basket. </p>
                                 <p>Andrew Smolar | The Laurinburg Exchange</p>

Jamicia Davis plays defense on a Bluefield player looking to drive to the basket.

Andrew Smolar | The Laurinburg Exchange

LAURINBURG —The St. Andrews Knights women’s basketball team picked up a 75-64 victory over the visiting Bluefield Rams on Saturday afternoon at Harris Court. The Knights improve to 9-10 (5-7 against conference opponents) on the season with their third consecutive win while Bluefield falls to 2-13 (2-9 against AAC teams) with their eighth straight loss.

Head Coach Denise Hannah is happy to see the consistency her team has shown during the winning streak. That said, she knows that work remains to be done as the Knights attempt to climb from their 10th place spot in the AAC standings.

“We tell them to stay the course, we know the end goal and what it’s going to take to get there,” Hannah said. “We talk about stacking days, now we have to stack our games.”

Destiny Long got the Rams on the board first with a made layup just 31 seconds into the game, though Alexandria Barrino answered with a layup of her own 26 seconds later to even the game at two. The teams then traded four-point runs to stand even at six with 6:03 remaining in the opening quarter. After Bluefield was up 9-8 with 5:04 left, St. Andrews turned the game upside down with 15 unanswered points that put them ahead 23-9 with just under three minutes left (2:52) in the opening period; they would lead 28-17 after 10 minutes of action.

A fast start is something that Hannah wanted to have coming into the contest. She was pleased with the execution of the gameplan in the early stages of the contest.

“I told them we wanted to jump on them quick and get the lead to keep our foot on the gas,” Hannah said. “We scouted them well and knew what they wanted to do as hard drivers.”

The Knights would hold serve in the second frame as both teams scored 13 points. Bluefield started the quarter with five straight points in the first 1:11 before neither team scored any points for nearly three minutes; the streak came to an end on a layup by Katie Moore with 5:56 left until halftime. St. Andrews would hit a couple of key three-pointers, including one by Jaclyn Wright-Thompson with 59 seconds left in the half to keep their 11-point (41-30) lead going into the second half.

St. Andrews started the third quarter on a mission as they scored the first five points in 1:31 on layups from Angelina Jordan, Jamicia Davis and a free throw from Londaisha Smith. Even though the Rams hung around for the most of the third, the Knights would score eight unanswered from the 3:33 mark to the 1:46 mark and got another three from Smith that saw the Knights extend their lead up to 20 (62-42) after 30 minutes.

Ta’Niyah Hairston knocked down another three-pointer for St. Andrews with 6:22 left in the final period to give the Knights their largest lead of the contest at 69-47. After that, the Knights had problems closing the game out as the Rams then scored 14 straight points to suddenly narrow the gap to eight (69-61) with 2:28 left in regulation. Smith would knock down another three-pointer 39 seconds later to temporarily give St. Andrews a little breathing room, though Bluefield still was within eight (72-64) with 72 seconds left in the game. It wasn’t until Davis’ two free throws with 50 seconds left that the Knights truly put the game away as they wouldn’t allow any more points by the Rams after that.

Even though the Knights won by double digits, Hannah wasn’t thrilled with how St. Andrews let Bluefield hang around for large portions of the fourth quarter. Moving forward, she wants her team to keep the intensity high throughout all 40 minutes of the game and not cruise to the finish line as they did on Saturday.

“We got lackadaisical at points in the game, we should’ve beat them by 30,” Hannah said. “We don’t play to our identity when we have a lead and start coasting and taking plays off so definitely some things to clean up.”

Davis led the team in scoring with 15 points and also had six rebounds, a team high five assists, three steals and a block in the victory. AJ Price had eight rebounds to lead St. Andrews, who had three players record at least 10 points: Jordan (10), Smith (14) and Davis’ 15.

The Knights held the statistical advantage in most key areas. Those include field goal percentage (49.2%-41.5%), three-point percentage (43.5%-42.9%), rebounds (31-28), assists (16-14), turnovers committed (15-19), points off turnovers (23-15), second chance points (14-10), points in the paint (32-28) and bench points (27-15).

St. Andrews will have their next two games on the road, starting with a Wednesday night tilt against Kentucky Christian. Tipoff is currently scheduled for 5:30 p.m.