BAYAMÓN, Puerto Rico — Junior guard Amor Harris tied her career high with 23 points, including 18 in the second half, as the Longwood women's basketball team defeated Stephen F. Austin, 68-60, in the Puerto Rico Clasico at the Ruben Rodriguez Coliseum on Saturday.
Longwood used a 19-4 run over six minutes in the third quarter, extending a 32-27 halftime edge to as many as many as 12 points, and received a career-best five 3-pointers from Harris for a win over the 2025 Southland Conference champion.
"It was a great game," said Longwood head coach Erika Lang-Montgomery. "It felt like a tournament game — Two teams fighting really, really hard. And I'm just really proud that, you know, we were able to close the week the way that we did, 2-0.
"Today was a game of runs and we talked about it beforehand that who was going to be the tougher team who was going to withstand the runs and come on top at the end. And I thought we did a great job of, of closing out the game."
The front court tandem of juniors Frances Ulysse and Otaifo Esenabhalu combined for 23 points and 20 rebounds as Esenabhalu recorded her 11th career double-double with 11 points and 12 rebounds.
"We've been playing, more minutes with them on the floor together, and they've been playing together for three years now, so there's a rhythm and a comfortability when they're looking for each other and they're hard to stop. I thought Frances set the tone early, got us started and I think Otaifo really came in and gave us some solid minutes off the bench."
Longwood (6-3) shot 41 percent after halftime, including 5-for-10 from 3-point range, to claim its second consecutive victory.
SFA (5-2) shot just 33.3 percent in the second half following a first half that featured 10 lead changes and six tie scores. The Ladyjacks led, 17-14, after the first quarter and the Lancers were up, 54-45, heading to the fourth.
Longwood got 20 points off of 19 turnovers and turned 14 offensive rebounds into 16 second-chance points on the day.
SFA scored the first eight points of the second half to take a 35-32 lead with 8:18 remaining in the third quarter, capping the spurt with a Harmanie Dominguez triple, but the Lancers followed with with their decisive rally. Harris and Jesstynie Scott each tallied five in the 19-point run.
"Amor puts in so much time and so it's not a surprise that the ball goes in the basket when she takes a shot and we will continue to look for her as the season goes on," Lang-Montgomery said of Harris.
The Lancers held an 40-34 advantage on the boards and were plus-three on the offensive glass.
"That's an area that we wanted to improve and we outrebounded them," Lang-Montgomery said. "I think we were plus-six on the boards and had 14 offensive rebounds.
Dominguez scored 20 points for the Ladyjacks and Myka Perry had 19.
The Lancers return home to face Troy Wednesday in an 11 a.m., start at the Joan Perry Brock Center. The Trojans are ranked 10th in the latest CollegeInsider.com mid-major top 25 poll.
