Saturday, December 13, 2008

KENNESAW, Ga. - Junior guard Greteya Kelley and senior forward Britteny Henderson each had double-doubles for the Lady Owls as the Kennesaw State women's basketball team opened up Atlantic Sun Conference play with an 80-63 win over USC Upstate Saturday night at the KSU Convocation Center.

KSU (2-5, 1-0) trailed 33-31 at the half but used an 8-1 run to open up a 48-41 advantage. The Spartans (4-2, 0-2) responded with a 7-0 run to tie the score at 48-all with 10:31 to go. That would be the last time the game would be tied, as the Lady Owls went on an 11-0 run, fueled by eight points from Henderson to push the advantage to 59-48 with just under eight minutes to go. From there, the Lady Owls would not let the Spartans pull within nine points the rest of the way, pushing the lead to 19 when Henderson scored her 15th point of the second half with 1:47 to go to make the score 76-57.

Henderson would finish with 16 points on the night, all of which came in the second half. After being limited to just three rebounds in the first half, Henderson grabbed seven in the final 20 minutes for her first double-double of the season.

Kelley kept the Owls in the contest in the first half with 13 points. The junior finished with a game-high 21. With just under 20 seconds to go in the contest, the Lawrenceville, Ga., native grabbed her 10th rebound, flashing 10 fingers towards the bench during a dead ball moments later, letting her teammates and the crowd know she had the double-double.

Senior Jennifer Baker scored 11 points for the Lady Owls, tacking on eight rebounds with four coming on the offensive end. Freshman Angie Smith had nine points off the bench for KSU.

Upstate was led by Kendra Wallace, who scored 15 points on 5-of-9 shooting. Lesley Daniel scored 13 for the Spartans in the losing effort.