ROCK HILL, SC--The Winthrop women’s basketball lost its 15th straight after falling to Radford 88-50 in its final home game of the season.
Radford had five players in double-figure scoring as it ended a two-game losing streak to even its Big South record to 6-6 and improve to 12-13 overall. Winthrop fell to 2-23 on the year and remained winless in the Big South at 0-12.
The Highlanders led 11-6 with 14:36 to go in the first half and neither team scored for the next three minutes. Then Radford turned it on with a 16-3 run, opening up an 18-point lead with 4:58 to go in the half. Winthrop made a small 10-4 run with three-pointers from Arin Kress and Gene’t Moore, but Corrie Fertitta answered with her second three-pointer of the game to stop the run and eventually Radford led 38-20 at the break.
Over the first five minutes of the second half, Radford outscored the Lady Eagles 13-5 and ran away with the game. The lead got as high as 43 points with a minute to go in the game. The 38-point loss was the worst defeat by Winthrop to the Highlanders at the Winthrop Coliseum.
“I’m very disappointed in the effort tonight,” said head coach Bud Childers. “We just didn’t bring the intensity we needed on the defensive end. You have to give credit to Radford, who is coming off a tough loss when they gave up a huge lead and lost last weekend.”
Jesse Brunjak and Shavon Earp led Radford with 17 points. Kelli Darden scored 14 points, Fertitta added 12 and Alisha Jones had 10. Fertitta finished with a team-high nine rebounds. Taryn Causey, averaging 15.1 points a game coming in, only had eight points but dished out nine assists and had three steals.
Winthrop didn’t have any players score in double-figures as Jolandra Crump led with nine points and 10 rebounds. Jessica Dukes, Iva Milevoj and Moore all had eight points a piece.
Childers didn’t feel that his team gave the same effort it gave on Wednesday at UNC Asheville when the Lady Eagles nearly ended their losing streak. “We need to work on being passionate when we play. For some reason we haven’t had the same passion at home that we have on the road.”
Winthrop will be in action again on Monday, Feb. 28 at 7 p.m. in Lynchburg, VA to take on Liberty.
