BOX SCORE AND PLAY-BY-PLAY
CLEMSON, S.C. --- Chattanooga squandered a nine-point half time lead falling 79-74 at Clemson halting a four-game win streak Monday night at Littlejohn Coliseum.
“It was definitely a game of halves and part of that was we didn't play defense in the second half,” Lady Mocs head coach Wes Moore said. “We also had a lot of turnovers down the stretch. I thought we did a good job showing momentum through most of the game it was just a frustrating ending. Hopefully we can learn from this and get tougher mentally and physically.”
The Tigers shot 62.5 percent in the second half making 20-of-32 from the field including six 3-pointers outscoring Chattanooga 52-38.
Clemson cut into the Lady Mocs' lead at the start of the second half getting as close as four points on a 3 from Tasha Taylor less than a minute into the half. Chattanooga's lead fell to one point when Jasmine Tate made a layup to cap a 14-6 as Clemson nearly evened the score at 42-41 with 16:30 to play in the game.
However, Chattanooga would mount its own run to move the lead back to double digits and led 60-49 with 12:11 to play.
Over the next four-and-a-half minutes, Chattanooga went 1-for-6 and committed three turnovers as the Tigers outscored UTC 14-4 and took a 65-64 lead with 7:34 to play giving it up just once the remainder of the game.
The two teams combined for 11 turnovers in the first 10 minutes of the game before Chattanooga took control and went on a 14-0 run to take its largest lead of the game at 33-20 with 4:35 to play.
Chattanooga trailed 20-19 midway through the first half, but used a 14-0 run to jump out to a 33-20 lead with 4:35 to play in the period. Clemson would cut into that lead and the Lady Mocs went into halftime ahead 36-27.
The Lady Mocs shot nearly 56 percent in the first half and just over 44 percent in the second half for its third-best shooting percentage of the year, but the Tigers outdid UTC with a 51.6 percent performance
Shanara Hollinquest led all scorers with 24 points and nine rebounds and Jenaya Wade-Fray, still struggling from the perimeter, contributed 15 points on the night with five assists. Erin Ogan knocked down 12 points with a pair of blocks to move her to sole possession of fourth place on the all-time blocked shots list with 49.
Clemson was led in scoring by Lele Hardy with 21 points and 10 rebounds. Sthefany Thomas had 15 points for the Tigers while Tasha Taylor, with a trio of 3's, had 13 points and Whitney Hood was the fourth Clemson player in double figures with 11 points.
Chattanooga outrebounded Clemson 33-29 but lost the turnover battle 20-16. The Tigers' bench scored 36 points while Chattanooga's did not see much action contributing just 12 points.
The Lady Mocs will step back into conference action Wednesday night hosting Southern Conference foe Elon at the McKenzie Arena at 7 p.m.
