HIGH POINT, N.C. – The Presbyterian College women's basketball team posted several impressive runs to put itself in position to come back and win Thursday night's road Big South Conference game at High Point, but the Panthers held on for the victory, 75-64.
PC moves to 3-12 overall and 1-5 in the Big South. The Blue Hose will stay on the road to face Liberty on Saturday at 7 p.m. High Point improves to 8-7 on the year, 4-2 in the league and host Charleston Southern on Saturday at 2:30 p.m.
Blue Hose redshirt sophomore Keyonna Allen (Forest Park, Ga.) blocked five shots to set a new career-high and tie the most ever in a Division I game for PC. She becomes only the second Division I player with five blocks, joining Shonda Burnside, who swatted away five shots against NC Central on November 20, 2010.
PC shaved 14 points off of a 16-point first-half deficit but could never pull even with the Panthers. The Blue Hose also clawed to within five in the game's final minute after trailing by double-digits three minutes earlier.
Allen tied Karlee Taylor (Asheville, N.C.) for the team scoring lead with 15 points and paced all players on the boards, with eight. Freshman Aianna Kelly (Newport News, Va.) also set a new career-best with a game-high five steals.
The Blue Hose shot over 52 percent (52.4) for the second straight game, but the Panthers went 23-for-26 from the free-throw line to help put enough distance between themselves and the visitors to win.
High Point led by 13 with 5:22 to left in the game but PC cut the gap to 10 points on a Kasey Hobbie (Spring Lake, N.J.) trey at the 5:01 mark, setting the team up for the same sort of rallying feat it performed at the end of the first half. PC narrowed the margin to six points on scoring plays from Taylor and Allen and a Sherece Smith (Clemson, S.C.) layup after a High Point foul shot made it a five-point game with 57.2 seconds to go.
Taylor's initial three at 3:30 looked like a good start, but the Panthers grabbed three offensive rebounds on the next possession and eventually scored to drain the clock of 1:20 worth of game time. High Point finished the game with 17 offensive boards.
Unfortunately for the Blue Hose late in the game, PC had to foul to stop the clock and High Point made all of their chances to swell its lead back to 11 and the final score of 75-64. Kaylah Keys hit six of those free throws to help her to a game-high 21 points.
High Point raced off to a quick start to open the game and held a lead that hovered around double digits for most of the first half. The Panthers led by 16 with 4:16 to go before the break, but the Blue Hose responded with a 16-6 run to narrow the gap to six at halftime, 40-34.
Taylor and Rebecca Walker (Snellville, Ga.) each scored eight in the opening frame for PC, a team that used a 58.8 percent performance to stay within striking distance in the first half. On the other side, High Point took advantage of 11 first-half Blue Hose miscues to the tune of 13 points off of turnovers. The Panthers also used six three-pointers to build its lead.
Hobbie kickstarted the run with 4:05 left in the half by knocking down a three-pointer, her first of the day. Walker followed with a layup and hit a three-pointer in response to a Jatzmin Johnson jumper.
The deficit stood at 10 points with 1:29 on the clock before Noelle Carter (Neptune, N.J.) hit a free throw to make it a nine-point game. High Point's Keys found a bucket inside but the last five points would belong to the Blue Hose, as Kaycie Reffner (Altoona, Pa.) drained two free throws and Taylor finished an old-fashioned three-point play with 9.8 seconds left before the break.
A Sherece Smith bucket cut High Point's lead to two, but the points came before a 14-4 High Point run that put the home side ahead 54-40 at the 11:48 mark. PC responded with a 9-2 run of its own—including two strong Keyonna Allen baskets and an Aianna Kelly steal and fastbreak layup—to put the Blue Hose back within seven.
