FARMVILLE, Va. – Longwood may have suffered nearly a full starting lineup's worth of injuries before the end of 2016, but at least they still have Isaiah Walton.
 
In the short-handed Lancers' latest act of defying the odds amid an historic 3-0 start to Big South play, their newly appointed starting point guard took over after halftime and scored 15 of his 22 points in the first seven minutes of the second half to lift them (6-8, 3-0 Big South) to a gutty 79-76 victory over Presbyterian Wednesday night in Willett Hall.
 
The win kept Longwood atop the Big South standings as the league's lone remaining unbeaten team and extended a three-game Big South winning streak that is the program's longest since joining the conference five seasons ago.
 
"The bottom line is we found a way to win this game," said fourth-year Longwood head coach Jayson Gee, who has the Lancers sitting atop the Big South standings for the first time in program history. "There's something to be said about finding a way to win."
 
The historic start to Longwood's 2016-17 Big South slate saw the injury-decimated Lancers gut out a third straight back-and-forth victory, this time outlasting a Presbyterian (4-10, 0-3 Big South) team that built a 38-31 lead at halftime and battled back to retake the lead 61-59 with 7:14 remaining.
 
Using just a seven-man rotation, Longwood closed the game hitting 6-of-8 field goals, including back-to-back three-pointers from Isaac Belton and Walton that reclaimed the lead for good with 6:49 to play.
 
"We're starting to get some resiliency," said Belton, a senior captain who poured in 11 points and hit two go-ahead three-pointers in the game's final 11 minutes.
 
"Our mental toughness has grown. In the past, close games like this would have been a lot harder to close out. But we still have some things to work on, like me missing two free throws or turning the ball over the down the stretch. We're not there yet, but we're getting there."
 
Wednesday night's three-point win followed the Lancers' 60-55 upset over four-time reigning Big South champion High Point on the road on New Year's Eve and the 79-77 conference-opening win over Campbell on Dec. 29. In all three of those games, Longwood entered the final two minutes either tied, trailing or leading by no more than two possessions.

Longwood nearly let Wednesday's game slip away at the end of the first half, giving up a 16-3 run that turned a seven-point Lancer lead into a seven-point deficit entering halftime. Presbyterian forward Ruben Arroyo scored all eight of his points during that stretch, taking advantage of seven Longwood turnovers during the half's final six minutes.
 
"We lost energy. We lost intensity," Belton said. "We can't let people come into our house and play harder than us. That's what happened during that run. That's on me, that's on the leadership to not let that happen. We just have to pick that up."
 
Walton almost single-handedly picked it up himself, pulling the Lancers out of that seven-point halftime hole by opening the second half with a personal 11-2 run against the Blue Hose. He hit three consecutive field goals and all five free throws during that stretch, scored 15 of Longwood's first 17 points of the half and put the lead back in Longwood's hands with a pull-up jumper at the 14-minute mark.
 
"Game ball goes to 'Zay," Belton said. "He's just an aggressive player. I can always count on him when things are going wrong to get us a good shot. He's always in attack mode, and that helps us out especially when we're getting stagnant. He really helped us out because we were in a lull, and he got us out of that. It got my confidence up, and it got everybody's confidence up."
 
Walton's 22 points marked his team-leading 12th double-digit scoring game and eighth straight. He shot 8-of-10 from the field and added six rebounds, two steals and a pair of assists to remain among the Big South's top 10 in scoring, assists, steals, field goal percentage and minutes played. He is shooting .580 from the field and .524 from three-point range over his past seven games, compared to .388 and .364 in his first seven.
 
"Early in the season, I'd have a tough first half and it'd be hard for me to recover because I'd be so frustrated," Walton said. "But my coaches and teammates really helped me with being able to press reset and come out to the second half like it's a new game. That's what I did; I just hit reset, cleared my mind and started over."
 
Walton was one of Longwood's four double-figure scorers, joining Belton, reigning Big South Player of the Week Khris Lane, who scored 17, and senior captain Darrion Allen, who scored 12. Their combined production allowed the Lancers to shoot better than .560 from the floor and .500 from three-point range for the second time in the three Big South games.
 
"We're definitely having fun playing with each other," Walton said. "A lot of people forget this is a new team, and we used the preseason and non-conference to get used to each other. Now we're used to each other, and we're able to have fun. We're enjoying ourselves."
 
The Lancers will face their most difficult test of the conference season this Saturday, Jan. 7 when they square off against preseason favorite Winthrop (10-4, 2-1 Big South) in Rock Hill, S.C. That tipoff is slated for 4 p.m.  and will air live on the Big South Network and WVHL 92.9 Kickin' Country FM.
 
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