Box Score
FARMVILLE, VA--Winthrop freshman center Ashley Porter scored a season-high 19 points, but it wasn't  enough to offset the Longwood duo of Crystal Smith and Daieisha Brown who combined for 43 points in a 79-74 win on Saturday afternoon in the first Big South Conference meeting between the two schools.

Smith nailed the door shut with four straight free throws in the final minute to give her team a 78-72 lead with only 18 seconds left in the game.  She scored a game-high 23 points while freshman teammate Brown finished with 20. 

Joining Porter in double figures for Winthrop were Dequesha McClanahan, 17; Samiya Wright, 13; and Diana Choibekova, 12.

Winthrop drops to 7-7 overall and 1-2 in Big South play while Longwood improves to 5-8 overall with its third straight conference victory. 

Longwood, which came into the game averaging 6.6 made threes per game finished the afternoon at 11 of 38 from beyond the arc.  That proved to be the difference in the game.  With Schaquilla Nunn tying a season-high with 16 rebounds, Winthrop won the rebound battle 47-42.

For the game, Longwood shot 40 percent (28-70) compared to Winthrop's 22-26 (38.5).

Winthrop came out early in the first half to take a 13-6 lead with less than six minutes having elapsed on back-to-back 3-pointers by Choibekova and  McClanahan.  But over the next 5:41, the Lancers went on a 16-3 run to go up 22-17.  During that stretch, the Eagles were 1 of 10 shooting from the floor and committed two turnovers.

The Eagles battled back to knot the score at 27-27 folloiwng a back door lay-up by Porter and a layup by McClanahan at the 4:18 mark.  Winthrop went to intermission trailing 33-29.

Longwood came out in the second half to outscore Winthrop 11-5 and took its largest lead of the game at 44-34 with 16:05 left to play, but Winthrop didn't quit as the Eagles turned their offensive attention to the post where they enjoyed a height advantage by playing the 6-2 Porter and 6-3 Schaquilla Nunn at the same time.

Porter responded with 13 second half points and finished with 19 on 8 of 9 shooting.  Coming into the game, Porter had scored a grand total of 10 points in 13 games.  With her team trailing 47-41, Porter scored on back-to-back buckets in the paint and then tied the game at 49-49 on another shot inside with about 10 minutes left in the game.

The road-weary Eagles, who have been on the road since Dec. 30 on a journey that has taken them from Rock Hill to St. Louis, to Williamsburg, VA and on to Farmville, will hit the highway on Jan. 8  to South Carolina State in a 12 noon non-conference game.