Lady Builders Match Best Start In School History With 67-62 Win Over Southern Virginia

Posted: Jan 18, 2012

NEWPORT NEWS, VA. – Sophomore Shanae Hilliard scored 17 points while fellow sophomore Courtney Collins added 16 as the Apprentice School Lady Builders used a 10-0 run over a three minute span in the final six minutes to break open a close game and defeat Southern Virginia University 67-62 on Wednesday night.

The win for the Lady Builders helped them match the school record for best start to a season as the 2000-01 team also went 15-1 en route to a school record 24-3 season. Apprentice School entered the game ranked second in the USCAA Coaches Poll while Southern Virginia was ranked seventh.

Apprentice School opened the game strong jumping out to a 10-0 lead on a Hilliard layup with 15:22 left. The Knights worked their way back into the game trailing 25-24 on a 3-pointer from Nicole Baker with 6:13 remaining. The hosts responded quickly scoring six of the next eight points to push the advantage to 31-26 on a Loressa Lewis jumper with 3:21 left. That was the margin heading into half as SVU cut it to one and Apprentice School scored the last four points as a Hilliard layup with 53 seconds left gave them a 35-30 halftime lead.

In the second half, SVU opened with a flurry and took its first lead of the night on a Cara Joyner layup with 16:11 left to lead 40-39. The lead stayed in the three-point range for the next few minutes as a Danita Whitaker layup with 8:41 left pushed the Apprentice School advantage to 55-49.

SVU had one more run in them a Morgan Neese 3-pointer brought them back to a one-point deficit at 55-54 with 6:29 left, but from then the Lady Builders went on their 10-0 run capped by a Christina Licano layup with 3:26 left to go ahead for good 65-54.

Apprentice School hit 47.5% from the floor (29-of-61) and were 5-of-13 from 3-point range (38.5%). Tamara Davis was the leading rebounder on the night with five as Apprentice School was out-rebounded 34-27.

Southern Virginia was topped by Baker who had a game-high 29 points and Joyner added 10 points and a game-high eight rebounds. The Knights were blistering the nets at a 60% clip for the first 35 minutes and cooled off to 51.9% for the game (27-of-52) and were 3-of-14 from 3-point range (21.4%).

Apprentice School now travels to North Carolina for a pair of USCAA contests starting Saturday at Bennett College for a 2 pm tip in Greensboro.