Mercer Women Blow by Belmont

Adam Hunt
Sports Reporter / Columnist

Mercer’s women’s basketball team produced a lights-out offensive display to dispatch Belmont in their second Atlantic Sun Conference encounter of the season.
Senior guard Courtney Ford recorded her second triple-double of the season in the 98-69 win and had the University Center crowd singing her name.

The mercurial Ford scored 14 points, bagged 12 rebounds and helped out with 10 assists, becoming just one of two players in NCAA Division I basketball to have a pair of triple-doubles this season.

But Ford’s dominance belied a remarkably ruthless performance from the whole Mercer team whose 98 point total set a new home record.

The Bears never trailed in the contest, leading from start to finish, much to the disappointment of the Bruin’s experienced head coach Tony Cross.

Senior guard LaToya Jackson set the ball rolling early on, draining a three-pointer from top of the key. Ford then leapt into action with a combination of lightning lay-ups and tidy rebounds to help the Bears surge to 20-8 after seven minutes.

Mercer’s lead swelled to 49-28 with just three minutes left on the clock until half-time thanks to some fleet-footed offense from Ford, Jackson and junior Lacy Ramon.
However, to their credit, Belmont did find some of the form that saw them picked to finish third in both preseason polls. Senior guard Kristin Bunch notched a three-pointer and sophomore Crystal Kesler scored four to cut the Bears lead to 57-41 at the interval.

The Bruin’s continued their mini revival in the opening stages of the second half with a 6-2 run to slice the margin further to 59-47.

But Jackson checked into the game to silence the away team with a hanging three-pointer and two free throws just seconds later to increase the lead back up to 15.
Spurred on by Jones, Mercer began to utilize exceptional ball movement and found gaps in Belmont’s defense who could find no answers.

In the dying embers of the game it looked like the Bears would smash the 100 barrier but it wasn’t to be as an optimistic three point attempt from freshman Alex Phillips struck the rim on the buzzer.

The win pushed Mercer to 4-2 on the season and 2-0 in A-Sun play. The Bears have now started conference play 2-0 for the second-straight season.

Belmont, on the other hand, drops to 5-2 on the season with the loss and 1-1 in the A-Sun.
The performance was littered with outstanding individual efforts aside from the contributions of Jackson and Ford. Ramon and Phillips both recorded career-high scoring efforts with 14 and seven points respectively. In addition, freshman guard Lindsey Lowrie, who sat out last year as a redshirt, continued her striking start to the season with a career-high 16 points.

Coach Jones was full of praise for her team: “People need to start taking notice of how well the girls play together and see the potential this team has.”
She also commented on Ford’s input: "Courtney is just fun to watch. There is not much coaching involved, you just let her play. She generates energy for the rest of the team and right now its just exciting to be a part of her senior year."
Mercer will be looking to continue their first-class form against rivals Georgia Southern next time out at the UC on Dec. 11.