With Thanksgiving a day away, the Henderson State Women's Basketball team remained on campus and hosted Williams Baptist in a non-conference game Wednesday afternoon at the Duke Wells Center. The Lady Reddies (3-0) remained unbeaten on the young season as they beat the visiting Lady Eagles (2-3), 75-52.
Henderson was simply too much for Williams Baptist as the Lady Reddies led from wire-to-wire. The Lady Eagles were not even able to tie the score at any point once the scoring began.
Williams Baptist did hang around for a majority of the first half as they maintained a single-digit deficit until HSU's Sheay Longstaff knocked down a trifecta with 4:20 to go in the half to push the score to 31-20 in favor of the Lady Reddies. The Lady Reddies would take a 14-point lead into the locker room, 37-23.
In that first half, the Lady Reddies shot 47 percent on 15-of-32 shooting from the field. Joycelyn Taylor came off the bench and scored a game-high 10 points in the half. Longstaff and Crystal Harrison each added eight first-half points.
The second half saw the Lady Reddies begin to separate themselves from the Lady Eagles. As they cruised to the final buzzer, the Lady Reddies did not hold a lead any less than 13 points.
Four Lady Reddies scored in double figures with Harrison leading the way with her 15 points on 6-of-9 shooting. Taylor was not far behind as she totaled 14 points. Longstaff finished with 13 points and Aungelique Sledge added 12 points off the bench. As a team, the Lady Reddies forced 26 turnovers, 11 of which came via the steal. The team also dished out 15 assists. Cheree Freeman led the team with five assists.
In their three wins this season, the Lady Reddies have won by an average margin of 23.7 points per game.
The Lady Reddies now take to the road as they travel to Pensacola, Fla. to play a pair of games over the Thanksgiving break. Their first game against West Florida will be at 2:00 p.m. on Friday, November 25th. They will play again the following day against Alabama-Huntsville. Tip-off for that game is set for noon.
