No. 19 Florida Tech pulled away from Lynn in the second half en route to a 67-49 win Wednesday night. ( Photo by Amanda Stratford. )
BREVARD COUNTY, FLORIDA – In a game No. 19 Florida Tech needed to swing momentum back in its favor, the Panthers leaned on their defense and used an efficient second half offensive attack to claim a rejuvenating 67-49 win over Lynn at the Clemente Center Wednesday night.
After suffering through the toughest two-game performance of her four-year career, Wilson was in a groove early. Connecting on three of her first four field goal attempts, she carried the Panthers out to a solid 10-4 start.
Senior Kayk Wilson tallied a game-high 23 points, while fellow guard Shequana Harris registered an additional 15 off the bench for a Panther club that shot 48.4 percent from the field after halftime to pull away from the Fighting Knights.
John Reynolds
“Well two things we were missing that we showed tonight were emotion and communication,” said head coach John Reynolds.
“I thought that’s one of the things (DeLise) Williams brought us tonight. We started picking them up full court and played much better as a whole.”
Converting six early Lynn turnovers into 11 points, a swarming Panther defense helped extend the lead to nine at the 10:44 mark of the opening half.
Hanging around, however, Lynn’s Charla Nelson-James muscled her way into the paint for back-to-back lay-ups to cut the deficit back to a deuce with 3:09 before the break.
Moments later, Harris pick-pocketed Lynn point guard Destiny Brown and laid in her easiest two of the night to stretch the Panther advantage back to six just before intermission.
Kayk Wilson
Senior Kayk Wilson tallied a game-high 23 points, while fellow guard Shequana Harris registered an additional 15 off the bench for a Panther club that shot 48.4 percent from the field after halftime to pull away from the Fighting Knights.
While the rest of the club shot a forgettable 2-of-19 from the field, Harris and Wilson teamed up for 18 first-half points to give Florida Tech a 26-22 lead entering the locker room.
Spurring a 12-4 run to begin the second half, Jasmire Brown drained her only two field goals of the evening to put Florida Tech up a dozen with 16:19 remaining in the contest.
The Fighting Knights chipped away though, and were back within two possessions following a trey from leading-scorer Sharneka McCatty.
A quick 9-0 burst would follow by Florida Tech, giving them breathing room up 52-38 with 8:11 to go.
With under four minutes left and Lynn desperately needing a stop, Harris drained a pull up jumper in the lane to stretch the margin to 19 and erase any doubts in FIT fans’ minds.
“You know what, we’re 16-2 and 6-2 in the league, but now we’ve got to do it all over again,” said Reynolds referring to playing each Sunshine State Conference opponent once more in the regular season.
FIT heads to Eckerd this Saturday for a 2 p.m. tip-off, in a rematch the Panthers nabbed 76-60 back on Dec. 6.
