Nashville, Tenn. ? Senior guard Kellie Olson (Tucson, Ariz.) tied her season high with 14 points and tied her career high with eight rebounds, but it was not enough to lead the Stetson women's basketball team (4-17, 2-6 Atlantic Sun) to a road win at Lipscomb Saturday. The Lady Bison (6-16, 4-4 A-Sun) claimed the win by a 65-56 score at Allen Arena.
Ahead by 10 at halftime, the Lady Bisons held Stetson at bay most of the way home. The Hatters cut the lead to 54-48 with 6:30 left, but that would be as close as they would get until 1:12 remained. At that point, sophomore forward Ashli Jackson (Opelika, Ala.) swished a three-pointer from the top of the key to cut the Lipscomb lead to four, 60-56.
The Hatters had a chance to make it a one-possession in the final minute, but freshman guard Brittany Carannante (Clearwater, Fla./Clearwater HS) could not get her three-pointer from the right wing to go down.
Olson drained four of eight three-point attempts en route to her first double-figure scoring output in 2008. Junior guard Sharnesha Smith (Kingsland, Ga.) joined Olson in double figures, finishing with 11 points and a game-high six assists and four steals. Junior center Ayesha Barkley (East Orange, N.J.) led all players with nine rebounds, blocked three shots, tied her career high with three steals and scored six points. Freshman center Jessica Conner (Cocoa, Fla./Cocoa HS) tallied seven points.
With 28 blocked shots on the season and 57 for her career, Barkley now ranks eighth and sixth, respectively in the Stetson record books. Olson moved into 10th place in Stetson history for career three-point field goal percentage (55-181, 30.4 percent).
Katie Rollins led Lipscomb with 16 points and six rebounds while Jilian Partin used 9-10 free throw shooting to amass 15 points, six rebounds, five assists and two steals. Kaleigh Gossman finished with 10 points. The Lady Bisons were scorching at the free throw line, shooting 85.7 percent as a team (24-28).
Lipscomb jumped out to a 9-2 lead in the first three and a half minutes but the Hatters soon roared back, going on a 10-2 run to take their first lead with just over 14 minutes left. After the two teams traded baskets for a few minutes, Stetson took its largest lead to that point when Olson found Smith in the left corner for a three-pointer to put the visitors up 18-15.
Lipscomb scored the next 10 points until Olson ended that run with her second three-pointer with approximately six and a half minutes left in the half. However, the Lady Bison would continue to pull away, keeping Stetson scoreless until the final minute of the half and taking a 33-23 lead into the locker room.
Smith scored nine points to lead all scorers in the first half with Brown and Olson adding six each for the Hatters. Partin had eight points for Lipscomb with Rollins adding seven and Gossman six.
The Hatters return home to face defending Atlantic Sun conference champions Belmont at the Edmunds Center on Monday. Tip-off is at 7 p.m. with Bill Topping calling the action. His broadcast, along with the webcast, is available through Hatter Vision on the official online home of Stetson Athletics, www.gohatters.com.
