The Auburn women’s basketball team picked up another huge win Saturday, defeating East Carolina 83-69 in coach Terri Williams-Flournoy's 200th career win.
“It feels great,” said Williams-Flournoy. “Like I said, it is my 200th, but it is also our players, Auburn players’ 200th win. It is awesome.”
The game started with Auburn coming out aggressive and gaining a 9-2 lead. East Carolina out scored them 15-2 over the next few minutes. Both teams responded from deficits greater than 7 points to finish the quarter tied 20-20.
A little under halfway through the first quarter Auburn switched into a full court press. The move proved to be successful as they were able to create turnovers but had trouble capitalizing on their opportunities. In the second quarter they no longer faced that problem.
East Carolina’s turnovers began to pile up and Auburn junior Brandy Montgomery came out and scored 10 straight to add to her 23-point total. Auburn went on to outscore East Carolina 27-9 in the second quarter which proved to be the difference.
“It feels great,” said Williams-Flournoy, “Like I said, it is my 200th, but it is also our players, Auburn players’ 200th win. It is awesome.”
Statistically, Auburn had a lot of players step out of their comfort zone yet still provide big performances. When senior center Tra’cee Tanner went to the bench with foul trouble, junior guard Katie Frerking took on a bigger role in the offense. She matched her career-high of 15 points at the end of the first quarter, and finished with 26 points. On top of her offensive dominance she was able to record six steals and two blocks while playing 32 minutes. The leading scorer for East Carolina was guard Jada Payne, who had 23 points in 40 minutes of action.
Turnovers proved to be an issue for both teams in a particularly sloppy game, as ECU ended with 33 turnovers while Auburn racked up 28.
“It was probably the ugliest game I have seen in a while," Williams-Flournoy said. “We forced them into 33 turnovers, we had 28. There was a lot of bad basketball going on in that time. At least we had less than them.”
The Tigers will take a short hiatus for final exams and then be back in action on Sunday, Dec. 13 in Milwaukee against Marquette.
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