Lady Indians win second-straight, 58-42 over Lawson State
Adam Gore/LetsGoICC.com
BIRMINGHAM, AL – Freshman forward LyTia Coleman (Memphis, TN) came off the bench to score a game-high and season-high 14 points to help the Itawamba Community College Lady Indians pick up their second-straight win of the season when they defeated Lawson State Community College 58-42 on Saturday.
"LyTia did a great job coming off the bench and being a spark for us," said ICC head women's basketball coach Nanci Gray. "I felt we came out a little flat and just couldn't seem to get going until she came in with a lot of energy that the rest of the girls were able to feed off of to be able to get this win."
Ashley Wiley (Jackson) added 9 points and 4 steals for the Lady Indians.
"Ashley did a lot of things that didn't show up in the box score that helped us be successful last season and she's going to have to do that again this season," Gray said of the sophomore guard. "I felt like she saw where we were struggling and was able to step her game up in those areas when we needed her the most."
Sophomore Ayanna Lynn (Indianola) scored 8 while fellow sophomores Ty-Nita Baker (Houston) and Jasmine Hampton (Bruce) added 6 points in the win.
"We are going to have to lean on our sophomores to help bring along our freshman during the early part of the season," Gray. "I felt like the sophomores were able to call on the experience they earned last season to be able to find a way to battle through the adversity and hold off a really good Lawson team down the stretch."
Once again ICC won the turnover battle forcing Lawson into 18 turnovers while only committing 12 of their own.
"That's been a big focus for us in preparing for the season," Gray commented. "We knew we were going to have to take care of the ball to be successful and even though we still committed 12 turnovers I thought we did a good job creating scoring chances off their turnovers."
Freshman point guard Leslie Robinson (Belmont) paced the Lady Indians with 5 assists while scoring 6 points.
"Leslie has been working extremely hard to know her role as the point guard of our offense," Gray. "She does a great job of controlling the tempo and creating scoring opportunities for her teammates. There is still plenty of room for improvement, but I have been really pleased with her play and hope she continues to work hard to keep improving as the season goes along."
Coleman helped the Lady Indians out-rebound Lawson State 45-39 by grabbing a team-high 9 boards.
"I liked how aggressively we went after rebounds," Gray. "We are going to have the mentality of every rebound belongs to us to be able to fight and control the boards this season. Hopefully this was just the start of us being able to do that."
Baker and Wiley each had 8 rebounds in the win.
Kari Jones came off the bench to pace Lawson State with 14 points and 12 rebounds while Morgan Rogers added 11 in the loss.