By Nicholas Kolsin
Women’s Basketball
The #22 UNCP Braves Women’s Basketball team (4-1) beat the Fayetteville State Broncos 63-56 at home on Wednesday night.
Kelci Adams would have 23 points and 12 rebounds shooting 7-10 from three to lead the Braves to victory. Stella Mollica would tie a school record with 13 assists in the game. Hannah Russel had an impressive game scoring 12 points and catching 4 boards.
The Braves started off the game hot with two threes from Kelci Adams to go up 6-5 early in the game. On the next Braves possession, Adams would once again score on a layup after grabbing the rebound on a Braves miss to go up 8-5.
Adams was not done yet, as the Braves were up 8-7, she would hit her third three of the game and her 11th straight point for the Braves to go up 11-7. Zaria Clark would get herself involved in the game by scoring a mid range jumper off of a Braves rebound.
Anastasia Sinclair would hit a three with 2:14 left in the first quarter to give the Braves a 7 point 16-9 lead. Back to back points from Stella Mollica and Hannah Russell would bring the Braves lead up to 11 to end the first quarter 20-9.
Russell would hit back to back layups to go up 25-14 with 6:25 left in the second. After a Broncos three, Adams would respond with a three of her own, followed by a layup from russell and a corner three from Natalie Evingston to go up 33-17. On all of those baskets, Stella Mollica would get the assist on all three of them. She would finish with 13 assists tying the Braves all time record.
The Braves would come out of half on a 7-2 run in the first three minutes to go up 43-27 ealy in the half. The teams would trade baskets for the next five minutes until Adams would hit another three to give the Braves a 14 point 50-36 lead with 2 minutes left in the third. An Anastasia Sinclair jumper at the buzzer would give the Braves a 15 point lead going into the final frame.
The final quarter started out rough for the Braves as the Broncos would cut the lead to single digits with 6:04 left to play. The Broncos would score six straight points to cut the lead down to five with 3:44 left in the game. Hannah Russel and Zaria Clark would give the Braves some breathing room with back to back shots to go up 63-54 in the final minute of the game.
The Braves would go on to win 63-56 to improve their record to 4-1, their best record since the 2016-2017 season.
Men’s Basketball
The Men’s Basketball team improved their record to 2-4 in an impressive win over the #22 ranked Lincoln Memorial Railsplitters.
Bradlee Haskell would lead the team with 26 point and 6 rebounds. After a slow start, Dallas Gardner would score 11 of his 13 points in the second half to help propel the team to victory. Joe’l Pettiford would have a solid 8 points 8 rebounds performance.
As a team, the Braves shot 29-29 from the free throw line, the first time in school history that they would be perfect from the line.
After an opening possession score by the Railsplitters, the Braves responded quickly with a turnaround jumper from Joe’l Pettiford. After a LMU basket, the teams would go cold for a while, going into the under 16 media timeout with LMU up 4-2.
The Braves would come out of the media timeout and score 6 straight points to take an 8-4 lead off of two Bradlee Haskell buckets. Quay watkins would come in the game and quickly leave his mark going up in the paint, hitting the shot and getting fouled to go up 11-6.
LMU would go on a 9-0 run to take the lead back and go up by four. Coming out of the media timeout, Elijah Cobb would hit a jumper to end the Railsplitters run. With 9:46 to go in the half, Bradlee Haskell would convert an and-one to take the two point 18-16 lead. After LMU tied it, Jajuan Carr would get going and hit another and one for the Braves to make it 21-18. Bradlee Haskell would hit a three on the next possession to bring the lead back up to six.
After LMU went on a 7-0 run to go up by 1 with 5:22 to go, Pettiford would hit a turnaround layup to go up by one, then Haskell would hit another three to take a four point lead. Carr would score again to get the lead back up to six. With two minutes to go, Steven Lassiter scored his first points of he night to push the lead to seven. Back to back points from the Railspilters would make it a four point game going into halftime.
LMU would take the lead coming out of half off of five straight points. Haskell would hit would free throws after a Carr bucket to take a 41-38 lead. Then the Railsplitters would punch back, going on a 13-0 run to take a 52-43 lead. A Haskell and-one would stop the LMU run with 13:07 to play in the game. Ant Abraham would get fouled on a three point shot to make it a three point game. On the next possession, Josh Berenbaum would hit a huge three to tie the game back up at 52.
Haskell would hit two free throws coming out of the timeout to go up by two wit 10:5 to go. Then, Carr would it a two to go up by three. LMU would tie the game back up at 56 with 8:30 to play. Later in the half, up one, Berenbaum would hit a huge dunk to take a three point lead. Not to be out done by Pettiford’s dunk on the very next posession for the Braves. With 4:13 to play, Dallas Gardner would hit a tough and one bucket to go up by four. With the lead at three with 2:33 to go, Elijah Cobb kicked it out to Gardner in the corner for another three to go up by six.
Up by four with 2:05 to go, Gardner would take a deep “heat check” three, while he missed it, he got fouled and shot three free throws with a chance to all but put the game out of reach. He would hit all three and take a 7 point lead on the Railsplitters. LMU would never be able to get it closer than 5 as the Braves would go on to win the game 83-75.