CHATTANOOGA --- Chattanooga women's basketball quickly found its way back into the win column on Saturday, with the Mocs grabbing a wire-to-wire victory over Western Carolina in what ended up being a 74-59 win for UTC when all was said and done.

The Mocs (11-11, 6-3 SoCon) shot the lights out of the gym on Saturday in the Roundhouse, with UTC ending the game with a 57.8 field goal percentage and 53.3 three-point percentage as a team. At one point leading by as much as 23 points, every active Moc on the roster was able to check into the game as Chattanooga dismantled the eighth-place Catamounts (11-13, 1-8 SoCon) in front of the McKenzie faithful.

"I think that one thing that we've talked about as a group is we have to continue to get better every single day as we're in the heart of the season," head coach Deandra Schirmer said. "One thing that we've talked about is we need to keep adding dimensions to our game. We need to keep getting better and tonight I thought we did an excellent job and our bench did an excellent job coming in.

"We were playing a lot more bodies and everybody who came in was able to contribute for us. That's something that we're prepping for the postseason and to get some really good minutes from a lot of players that maybe haven't seen as much time and for them to step up and play really well."

The game started off as a dead heat with both teams refusing to break and allow the other on the board. For the opening 2:44 of action, UTC and WCU remained deadlocked at 0-0 with both teams looking to open the day's scoring.

Thankfully for the Mocs, Karsen Murphy took home the honors as the senior drained a three-pointer to open the day's scoring. From here on out, Chattanooga's offense never broke a stride as a wide variety of Mocs graced the score sheet.

The Mocs would end up taking a sizable 20-8 advantage into the second quarter, and while Western Carolina was able to lean on AC Carter for much of their scoring, UTC continued to spread the wealth offensively as the Mocs carried a 37-30 advantage into the halftime break.

The second half then became the Caia Elisaldez show, as the freshman dazzled with multiple highlight plays to build UTC's lead up to nearly 20 points. Now ahead 64-46, Coach Schirmer would turn to the bench to ride out SoCon win No. 6.

Continuing to not just rely on a singular scorer, the Mocs at one point built up a 73-50 lead on the Catamounts before finally letting their foot off the gas, allowing Western Carolina to close down the gap before the final buzzer sounded. Even so, the Mocs were walking out of McKenzie Arena with a 74-59 win over Western Carolina, giving Chattanooga a crucial win as the top four teams in the conference continue to battle for seeding as the season reaches a crescendo.

Elisaldez ended her day with a team-high 18 points, marking her fourth-straight game leading the team in scoring. She was joined by Sigrun Olafsdottir in the double-digit scoring department, with Olafsdottir tying her career-high of 16 points after shooting at a 70 percent (7-for-10) clip from the floor. The Iceland native also tallied a team-leading four assists and two steals in the contest.

Karsen Murphy also put together a solid outing on the offensive end for Chattanooga, ending with 11 points, nine of which came from three-point range. Gianna Corbitt finished her game with eight rebounds, leading the way for the Mocs in the category. Takia Davis added a team-high two blocks to round out the UTC stat leaders.

FROM THE HEAD COACH | QUOTES
On game flow and struggles
"We know we have been struggling a little bit with beginning of games, so we decided this game to just come out strong and hit the first punch and we get them go and we struggle a little bit, it was scoring, but our defense held, so just gotta get the group of the game and let it come to us. Yeah, and I I think to start the game, I think it was zero-zero for like the first three minutes of the game. and we've talked about that a little bit. if it takes us a little bit to get going offensively, our defense has to hold and I really think, you know, we scored 20 points, but I feel like that was in the last five minutes of of the first quarter. And so that's something where controlling what we can control and coming out and playing defense and rebounding basketball, and then the rest is gonna come."

TOP TAKEAWAYS | NOTES
- This was the 101st meeting between Chattanooga and Western Carolina.
- The Mocs currently lead the all-time series 88-13.
- This includes the Mocs having a record of 41-7 when hosting the Catamounts.
- UTC has won its last six meetings with WCU dating back to a Jan. 28, 2023 loss to the Catamounts.
- Chattanooga has also won 31 of its last 33 matchups with Western dating back to 2010.
- Chattanooga currently holds the longest active streak in the entire NCAA when it comes to consecutive games with a made three-pointer.
- Dating back to December 1999, UTC has made a three-pointer in 798 straight games.
- Put up 74 points on WCU, the Mocs' highest scoring game against a SoCon opponent this season.
- This is also the third double-digit conference win for the Mocs this season.
- UTC shot 57.8 percent (26-for-45) from the floor, marking the team's second-highest shooting percentage this year.
- The Mocs also shot above 50 percent from three, going 8-for-15 (53.3 percent) from behind the arc.
- This also ranked as the second-highest three-point percentage for the team this season.
- UTC out-rebounded the Catamounts 30-26.
- The Mocs out-scored WCU in the following categories: points off turnovers (22-18), points in the paint (34-20) and second chance points (11-10).
- Chattanooga never trailed in the game and held the lead for a total time of 36:53.

UP NEXT: MERCER
The Mocs will head back on the road this week with the team traveling to take on Mercer and Samford. UTC will start its week off on Thursday, February 13, with the Bears in Macon, a game that is slated for a 7 p.m. ET start time. The Mocs then head to Birmingham to take on Samford at 3 p.m. ET on Saturday, February 15. Both games will be available to stream via ESPN+ or listen to on WFLI 96.1 FM/100.3 FM/1070 AM or The Varsity app.

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