Lady Indians beat Lawson State 75-69 for third-straight win
Adam Gore/LetsGoICC.com
FULTON, MS – A trio of sophomores step up in the clutch to help the Itawamba Community College Lady Indians pick up their third-straight win with a 75-69 win over Lawson State Community College on Thursday.
Ty-Nita Baker (Houston) scored 29, Ayaana Lynn (Indianola) had 16 and Jasmine Hampton (Bruce) added a season-high 13 points for the Lady Indians.
"This is the output we've been looking for from these three sophomores," said ICC head coach Nanci Gray. "They got a lot of minutes as freshmen last season and we knew we were going to have to lean on them to be successful this season, but didn't think it would take 10 games for them to find their rhythm as a group."
Hampton came out and was a force early in the game scoring back-to-back-to-back easy baskets that forced Lawson State to respect the sophomore's presence in the paint.
"When we can get Hamp going early it really helps make things easier on us offensively," Gray said. "The defense has to respect her scoring ability and help in the paint which helps our guards get a lot less contested shots."
Rebecca Payne (Birmingham, AL) grabbed a team-high 7 rebounds while Baker, Lynn, fellow sophomore Ashley Wiley (Jackson) and Latoya Collins (Jackson) each grabbed 6 boards in the win.
"Rebecca is starting to feel more comfortable with her ability to play on this level and her role on this team, but I was really impressed to see how our guards helped out tonight by crashing the boards to take some of the rebounding pressure off with our post players working so hard in the paint on both sides of the ball," Gray.
The Lady Indians held Lawson to 35.2 percent from the floor while forcing them into 14 turnovers on the night.
"We are getting better on defense," said Gray. "The girls are communicating better, but have also gotten a feel for what each other are going to do defensively to know when to help or how to react in certain situations."
Morgan Rogers paced Lawson with 18 while Amanda Toliver added 10 points in the loss.
