Junior guard Taylin Underwood scored 21 points in the win against Mobile.
Jonathan Rhodes/The Lion's Roar

The Lady Lions basketball team won their first game of the season after defeating Mobile University 67-52. This is the first victory under Head Coach Errol Gauff.

“Before you can handle many you got to handle one and we got one,” said Gauff. “We really felt like at the end of the contest that we let one slip away on Sunday. This one was really important for us to win, it’s our home opener so this was huge.”

Gauff changed the defensive strategy during the game and believed it was a factor in the Lady Lions victory.

“The effort of the young ladies once we went to that zone was tremendous,” said Gauff. “The zone defense stymied them offensively and allowed us to get in rhythm both defensively and offensively. We only played about six or seven girls so they got in the flow and took us home from there.”

The team has struggled with injuries early this season and have missed some scoring options in the post as a result of those injuries.

“Tytiana Hall has been back for the last 12 days,” said Gauff. “Chambria Harrison been back about the last 14 days, so most of our practices we didn’t have post players. Dani Fielder is still out. She got over a hamstring and then she got hit in the head so now she has a concussion. We don’t have a ton of injuries we just had all of them in the post position.”

Senior forward Chey Stewart has pushed through her injury to help her team to progress further this season.

“Chey just got back her knee injuries,” said Gauff. “She is just sucking it up because it’s her senior year. I have much love and respect for what she is doing to help us because she could easily go ‘Coach I can’t go I need to have surgery,’ which she probably will have to have. But she was tremendous tonight.”

Freshman guard Taz Stinson had the team-high 10 rebounds, while freshman guard Tyler Morrison led the team with six assists. Junior Taylin Underwood scored 21 points and shot 7-14 from the field.

“We worked hard and it’s nice to see it finally pay off for a game,” said Underwood. “The first half was a little rocky, but what I think really helped was the defensive stops. Unlike the first half in the second half we started rebounding and along with the defensive stops we started scoring and it all built our momentum.”

The Lady Lions will play their next game on the road against Baylor on Nov. 22 at 7 p.m. Gauff believes that the team can continue to win with more hard work in practice.

“Everyday we got to get better in all phases,” said Gauff. “But if you want to be good you got to work on your fundamentals. I would say we need to keep working on our fundamentals and just keep working on understanding the system we’re trying to play with here.” 

Freshman guard Taz Stinson pulled down 10 rebounds.
Jonathan Rhodes/The Lion's Roar

Taylin Underwood
Jonathan Rhodes/The Lion's Roar

Freshman guard Tyler Morrison dished out six assists.
Jonathan Rhodes/The Lion's Roar

Freshman guard Tyler Morrison
Jonathan Rhodes/The Lion's Roar

Junior guard Bre Warren scored nine points.
Jonathan Rhodes/The Lion's Roar