Mason Wittner—Staff Writer
Kennesaw State picked up their first Atlantic Sun victory in the conference opener Saturday as they traveled to Spartanburg, South Carolina and defeated USC Upstate 72-63.
The Owls (12-4, 1-0) were led offensively by Deandrea Sawyers who had 21 points and 5 assists and Jasmine McAllister with 17 points 11 rebounds. McAllister recorded her ninth double-double of the season.
“She [McAllister] is a huge asset,” said head coach Nitra Perry. “I think having that post threat has really opened it up for Deandrea Sawyers and Aareon Smith, and vice versa. But she’s such a great, selfless kid. I thought that she also did a good job of defending Brittany Starling, who before we played them, had pretty much averaged a double-double as well. So, I thought she got it done on offense and defense.”
After being out-rebounded 47-33 in their loss to rival Mercer last week, KSU managed to bounce back and out-rebound the Spartans 48-34.
“I thought they really regrouped after the Mercer loss,” Perry said. “We really focused on the fact that we needed to improve our rebounding, and just taught them some different strategies on how to do that. I just thought it spoke to the character of our team how when something goes wrong, we come back and regroup quickly and it resulted in a win.”
The first half told the tale of two teams evenly matched and each struggling to find any rhythm offensively. The Owls went 14-33 shooting in the first half, while Upstate managed to shoot just 33 percent.
After Kristina Wells gave KSU a 27-26 lead with 1:47 remaining in the first half, Sawyers extended the lead by draining back to back threes in the final thirty seconds to give the Owls a 33-26 lead at halftime.
The momentum carried over into the second half of play as the Owls caught fire offensively and went on a 23-9 run to bust the game wide open. KSU held a dominant 56-35 lead over Upstate with 9:49 left in the game.
However, after trailing 59-35 with 7:49 to go, the Spartans sparked a 22-5 run of their own in the span of just over three minutes. Suddenly, the once 21-point deficit was minimized to seven as KSU clung to a 64-57 lead with 4:24 left in the game.
“I thought they were still very composed,” Perry said. “We didn’t fully understand that really a twenty-point lead is not a lot when you’re in conference play. You knew they were going to make their run. It wasn’t unexpected, and I thought our kids responded very well.”
The Owls responded with strong defense as they held the Upstate to just six points in the final four minutes of play.
One possible cause for concern demonstrated in KSU’s win Saturday was their subpar performance from the free throw line. The Owls shot just 9-23 from the stripe, while the Spartans made the most of their opportunities knocking down 8-11.
“We shoot free throws in practice all the time,” Perry said. “That’s something I can work on as a coach, and they’ll come around. We were actually shooting well from the free-throw line the past few games. It was just one of those games.”
The Owls will return home Wednesday Jan. 14 to take on Northern Kentucky.
