The Saint Louis University women’s basketball team defeated UAB 64-54 and South Florida 81-73 last weekend.
Two players shattered individual records over the weekend. Friday night, Stephanie Solomon had a career high of 19 points. In the South Florida game on Sunday, Harmonie King had her first double-double, with 18 points and 11 rebounds.
“It’s nice to see these kids step up. It bodes well for us when we have at least four players in double digits,” said coach Jill Pizzotti.
Despite struggling to maintain any sense of consistency Saturday night, the Bills pulled off a win against South Florida. In the first half, the Bulls led most of the time, leading by eight, 22-14, with about 8:30 remaining in the half.
“We need to be able to play for all 40 minutes,” Pizzotti said. “Our inconsistency is our biggest challenge.”
The Bills were able to come back and tie the game with just more than five minutes remaining, but the Bulls wouldn’t let them retake the lead and went into the locker room up 30-26.
The Bills came out of the locker room ready to play. A quick shot by Solomon cut the lead to two, 30-28. The Bulls kept their lead, yet the Bills never let them get too far ahead.
With the Bills down by one with 10:50 left in the game, senior guard Star Jackson made a shot to give the Bills the lead for the first time since early on in the first half, 46-45.
The Bills were not able to hold on to the lead at that point, but with a three-point play from Angie Lewis, the Bills were able to tie the game again. On the next Billiken play, King sank a three-pointer, which gave the Bills the lead 55-52.
They would hold the lead for the rest of the game.
“We were getting the ball inside and making the higher-percentage shots,” King said.
The Bulls would pull within three at one point, but would not be able to come any closer than that. Down 71-64, the Bulls would start to foul with 1:27 left on the clock.
“We had the right people shooting the free throws, with Star and Harmonie,” coach Pizzotti said.
The Bulls then fouled King, who made eight out of her next 10 free throws to make the score 79-71. The Bulls would make one last effort, with a basket by Tristen Webb. But they fouled Jackson who calmly sank both her free throws to end the game, 81-73.
King scored 18 points and Lewis had 16 while Haywood had 12. King also led the Bills in rebounds with 11. Jackson led the Bills in assists with six. The Billikens are 14-10 overall and 5-4 in conference play.
At the start of Friday’s game, the Bills and UAB were going basket for basket, and with about 12 minutes remaining in the first half the score was tied 17-17. The Blazers then took the lead, but were only able to extend their lead to six points with a little more than eight minutes left in the first half.
A free throw by Solomon gave the Bills a chance to pull closer to UAB, and with 2:43 remaining in the half the Bills regained the lead with a layup from Shanda Greer. And when the Blazers bounced back SLU had the answers, this time it was Solomon who laid in another bucket to put SLU back on top.
“Our confidence in getting the ball in to the post helped us make the easy shots,” Solomon said. “We always try to get the ball inside, but tonight we were doing it.”
With 33 seconds on the clock the Blazers made a layup to tie the score, 33-33. The Bills had a chance to regain the lead, but a missed shot gave the ball to the Blazers. They took it down the court for a layup by Vanessa White, with three seconds left to give UAB the lead at the half 35-33.
The Bills came out of the locker room ready to play and quickly retook the lead, with shots by LaKia Jones and Solomon,
“We played as a team and didn’t break down, we picked up our defense and played even harder,” said Billiken guard Kirsti Holloway.
The lead went back and forth between the two teams, and with the score tied 52-52 with 6:53 left in the game, the Bills went on a12-2 run.
“We went hard to the boards and made the easy shots or drew the fouls,” Holloway said. With shots by Solomon, Holloway, and Angie Lewis, the Bills went up 60-54.
“We had a lot of support from the bench, with Holloway and Shanda adding a little boost, and Melissa Oliver had some big defensive plays,” Pizzotti said.
Final foul shots by Holloway and King in the final minute of the game, clinched the win for the Billikens.
