2011-12 Women's Basketball

HENDERSON, Tenn. - The Freed-Hardeman Lady Lions made 11 of their first 12 shots from the field en route to a 94-46 win over Blue Mountain (Miss.) College on Saturday afternoon in the FHU Sports Center.

The win improves the No. 8 Lady Lions to 13-4 on the season and 3-1 in TranSouth play.  Blue Mountain drops to 3-11 overall and 0-3 in the conference.

FHU opened the game on a 16-2 run and scored its first 28 points either from the free throw line or in the paint before a Tara Deatheridge 3-pointer extended the Lady Lions' lead to 20 points at 31-11 with 9:23 in the half.  Freed-Hardeman led by as many as 29 points and took a 48-21 lead into the locker room, fueled by a 64.7 percent (22-of-34) field goal percentage.

The Lady Lions didn't shoot quite as well in the second half but forced a total of 33 turnovers in the game to keep the Lady Toppers well out of reach as five FHU players scored in double figures in the win.

Jana Cross led the way with 25 points, 19 of which came in the first half, and eight rebounds.  Meribeth Boehler scored 14, while Whitney Johnson added 12.  Nicole Duncan and Hannah Parsley came off the bench to score 11 and 10 points respectively.

With No. 20 Bethel (Tenn.) College and No. 1 Union (Tenn.) University looming on next week's schedule, FHU head coach Dale Neal said it was important to emphasize to his players to take each game as it comes and not get caught looking ahead.

"Those games means a lot to us," he said, "but if we don't take care of business in other games, it will mean less.  We still want it to mean a lot."

FHU hosts Bethel on Thursday at 6:00 PM in an important conference game for both teams.  The game can be heard on 91.5, WFHU, and will be broadcast on WLJT-TV out of Martin, Tenn.

Notes: Freed-Hardeman has now won 29 straight games against Blue Mountain...Jana Cross needs 11 points to move into ninth place on FHU's career scoring list.  The junior now has 1465 career points...Meribeth Boehler grabbed a career-high four steals in the game...freshman Rachel Melson, sidelined by injury all season, saw her first action of the year and scored four points.