Greenville, S.C. – Milica Manojlovic tied her career-high of 19 points while
Tierra Hodges added a double-double to lead the Furman women's basketball team on Saturday afternoon during a 67-47 victory over the East Tennessee State Buccaneers at Timmons Arena.
Furman improves to 16-10 overall and 6-5 in the SoCon while ETSU falls to 8-18 on the season and 3-8 in conference play.
Manojlovic made her first eight field goal attempts and finished with 19 points, six rebounds and five assists. Hodges compiled her 13
th double-double of the season with 12 points, on 6-of-9 shooting, and a season-high 15 rebounds.
Lindsey Taylor and
Le'Jzae Davidson both had 12 points.
Grace van Rij pulled down a team-best seven rebounds.
Kaia Upton and Arielle Harvey both scored a team-leading 10 points for the Buccaneers while Shynia Jackson totaled eight rebounds. Micah Scheetz tallied four assists.
The Paladins trailed 8-6 early in the first quarter before closing out the final 5:31 on an 11-4 run. Manojlovic scored seven of her points during the run with her last, a layup, giving Furman a 17-10 lead with 19 seconds remaining.
The Paladins continued their run into the second quarter, outscoring East Tennessee State 11-4 over the first 4:48. A jumper by Hodges extended Furman's lead to 28-14 with 5:12 remaining. The Paladins would go ahead 36-20 at the 2:19 mark following Davidson's 3-pointer. Furman led 36-22 at halftime.
The Paladins concluded the first half shooting 15-for-25 from the field and 4-of-6 behind the 3-point line.
Furman connected on seven of its 10 field goal attempts in the third quarter. The Buccaneers managed to cut their deficit down to 41-28 to start the quarter capped by Harvey's layup with 6:15 to go. Harvey kept ETSU within 13 points at the 3:22 mark as her layup made the score 45-32. Davidson, Hodges and Manojlovic came back with eight straight points for the Paladins to extend their lead out to 53-34 with less than a minute remaining. Furman held a 53-36 advantage heading to the fourth quarter.
The Paladins limited ETSU to just 4-of-14 shooting in the final period. Furman opened the quarter on a 12-2 run and held its largest lead of the game, 65-38, with 5:51 left.
Maddie Griffon increased the Paladins' lead back to 27 points, 67-40, with 3:44 to go following her layup. The Buccaneers scored the game's final seven points to put the final score at 67-47.
Furman finished the game shooting 54.0 percent (27-of-50) from the field and 8-for-12 (66.7 percent) behind the 3-point line. The Paladins held ETSU to 30.4 percent (17-of-56) shooting overall and 11.8 percent (2-for-17) from 3-point range.
Furman held a 42-22 advantage in rebounding and 34-22 in points in the paint.
The Paladins plays their final two road games of the season next week beginning on Thursday, February 20 against Western Carolina at 7 p.m.