RADFORD, Va. — Radford shot a season-best 50.8 percent from the field, getting 23 from Joi Williams and 18 more by Georgia Simonsen, to beat the Longwood women's basketball team, 78-63, in Big South action at the Dedmon Center on Wednesday.
The Highlanders (12-9) were 30-for-59 from the field on the game, to pull into a tie at 4-2 with the Lancers in the league standings. Longwood, which is receiving votes in the CollegeInsider.com mid-major top 25 poll for a second straight week, fell to 13-6 overall with its second consecutive loss.
"I think Radford is playing good basketball now," Longwood head coach Erika Lang-Montgomery said. "After that High Point loss, they strung three together. I think they played more together than we did tonight. We weren't scoring, we weren't hitting shots, and that affected our play on the defensive end and we've got to get back to work and get better."
After a tight first quarter that finished with Radford ahead, 25-23, the Highlanders closed the first half on a 22-3 run over a nine-plus-minute stretch that lasted into the third quarter and didn't look back.
Radford also received 15 points and seven rebounds from Angelina Nice off the bench in the win. Jesstynie Scott tallied 12 points and three steals to pace the Lancers on the night, representing the only Longwood player to reach double figures in points, though 10 players scored.
"I thought our bench came in and gave us some really good minutes," Lang-Montgomery said. "I thought Jesstynie probably had one of her best games in a Longwood uniform. I thought, London [Harvey] and Lili {Booker] were very efficient in their minutes."
Jasmine Peaks converted an old-fashioned three-point play midway through the the first quarter as Longwood took a 16-12 lead, but Nice capped a quick 6-2 spurt that gave the Highlanders the lead on a layup with 1:47 remaining in the quarter.
Peaks responded with 3-point at the 1:18 mark and Jaci Bolden hit a pair of free throws to give Longwood a 23-22 edge. Nice then found Williams for a trey with less than a minute left in the frame as Radford retook the lead.
A Williams triple and Simsonsen layup pushed the lead to 34-28 for Radford at the halfway point of the second quarter. The lead grew to double digits with an Ellie Taylor offensive rebound and putback with 43 seconds left in the half as Radford went up, 43-31, at the break.
Radford led by as many as 18 points on four occasions in the third quarter, taking its largest advantage of the game at 71-48 with 6:42 left in the fourth quarter.
Peaks finished with nine points and two assists while Frances Ulysse had eight points. Harvey and Lili contributed seven points apiece.
Longwood is back at it Friday at 2 p.m., at the Joan Perry Brock Center against USC Upstate as impending winter weather forced the game with the Spartans to be moved up.
"It's something completely out of our control," Lang-Montgomery said of the weather. "As a team you talk about adversity will show up in different ways and obviously we can't predict the weather, so I wasn't expecting to play on Friday, but we will be ready to go when the ball tips."
