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ROCK HILL, SC—Erica Williams and Schaquilla Nunn recorded double-doubles and Dequesha McClanahan became the first player in Winthrop history to reach 2,000 career points to lead the Eagles to a 70-49 Big South Conference win over Longwood on Saturday at the Winthrop Coliseum.

Williams collected her fourth double-double of the season with 18 points and 15 rebounds while Nunn scored 14 points and grabbed 12 rebounds for her 10^thdouble-double of the season and the 24^th of her career. McClanahan surpassed the 2,000-point plateau early in the second half and finished the game with 14 points.

The win improves Winthrop's overall record to 13-5 and they are now 7-2 in the conference while Longwood drops to 6-12 overall and 3-6.

"I'm really happy for our players. They suffered a tough, hard-fought loss on Thursday night, but they came together and showed tremendous bounce back," said Winthrop head coach Kevin Cook.  "We played together.  We played as a team and all the credit goes to them.  I want to congratulate Dequesha for becoming Miss 2000.  That's a great accomplishment.",

Winthrop came out sluggish in the early going as the Eagles connected on just one of its first 11 shots and found themselves trailing the Lancers 12-5 after the first six minutes, 50 seconds.  When Nunn was whistled for her second foul about a minute later and was relegated to the bench for the final 12:29 of the first half,

Winthrop trailed by five, but freshman Brianna Boyd, who had seen limited playing time this year, came in to give the Eagles a lift. Boyd scored six points, grabbed four rebounds and blocked three shots in final 12 minutes of the first half to help give Winthrop a 32-31 halftime lead despite shooting just 30 percent from the field.  Nunn returned in the second half to score all 14 of her points and grab nine rebounds in 16 minutes. 

Cook said he didn't have to say a lot to his team at halftime.  "I have total belief in our team's ability to shoot the basketball, and I told them our shots would fall.  We were getting good looks, and the second half hinged on our energy.  We picked it up rather well in the second half," he said.

Winthrop and Longwood were tied at 38-38 after the first four minutes of the second half when the Eagles went on a 12-0 run over a period of four minutes.  McClanahan hit a short jumper to reach her historic milestone that put Winthrop up 48-38 with 12:17 left and followed with a layup to complete the run at the 11:51 mark.  Longwood would get within eight points on a layup by Brenna Robbins and two free throws by Brown, but Tiffany Charles made a steal and a layup to put Winthrop back up by double digits to stay at 52-42 with 10:37 remaining. 

McClanahan took the milestone in stride and said it has been an honor that she has been able to bring her talents to Winthrop.  "I am glad I had the opportunity to share thid day with my teammates and was able to show the community what Winthrop is all about.  I am just really blessed," the senior said. 

Without the services of Samiya Wright, who was held out of the game for precautionary reasons after taking a blow to the head during Thursday night's game with Liberty, the Eagles depended on its height advantage in the post. With Nunn back on the court, the Eagles outscored Longwood 20-4 in the paint in the second half alone and finished the game with a 32-10 advantage.  The inside domination more than made up for the fact that the Eagles did not make a three-point shot in six attempts during the game.

On the strength of the rebounding performances by Williams and Nunn, Winthrop won the battle of the boards by the count of 57-33, and the Eagle defense limited the Lancers to just 29.5 percent shooting for the game on 18 of 61 attempts.  After its slow shooting start, Winthrop warmed up in the second half to connect on 15 of 35 shots for 42.9 percent and finished the game at 36.9 percent (24-65).

The contest shaped up as a showdown between the league's top two scoring leaders, but that scenario never materialized as Longwood's Daeisha Brown, who came in averaging 17.3 points per game scored eight points before fouling out with less than eight minutes left. Kyndal Skersick was the only Longwood player in double figures as she finished with 10.

Winthrop's next game will be on Thursday, Jan. 23 when it travels to Buies Creek, NC to face Campbell at 7:00 p.m. while Longwood will travel to Liberty the same night.