HUGE SECOND HALF PROPELS FORTY-POINT WIN OVER NEWBERRY

Hartsville, SC – It should come as no surprise, but Shawnteanna Tillman is one heck of a basketball player. Tonight, she had a whopping 30 points to lead the Cobras to a forty-point victory over Newberry!

By The Numbers:

Final Score: Coker 84, Newberry 44
Records: Coker 23-2 (19-2 SAC), Newberry 6-19 (5-15 SAC)
Location: Hartsville, SC | DeLoach Center

Top Performers

Shawnteanna Tillman: 30 points, 4 steals, 4 rebounds, 3 assists
Mya Wasswa: 12 points, 6 rebounds, 3 steals

How It Happened:

A neck-and-neck first half started off with a Newberry bucket to go up 2-0 but was quickly answered by the first of many made threes by Tillman to take a 3-2 lead for the Cobras. She had the first eight points by herself as the Cobras went up 8-5. A tight first quarter was coming to a close with the Cobras up 12-10 when Tillman hit her third three of the quarter to take a 15-10 lead into the second, with 11 of those 15 scored by her.

Newberry showed that they came to play in the following quarter, with both teams trading buckets in the first part of play. The largest lead for the Cobras was seven early on, but a great string of possessions allowed Newberry to start chipping away at the lead. All of a sudden, a lead that was once 17-10 was a tie game at 22-22. Newberry then scored the next four points to take a 26-22 lead and maintained that cushion heading into the break, holding a 30-26 lead over the Cobras at halftime.

In her halftime interview, coach Melissa DeVore told us that she was going to the locker room to fire up the girls, and stated that they needed to create chaos on defense and speed it up on offense. Well, whatever she said at halftime sure did the job. The first lead out of the break was taken at 35-34 off a (guess who) Tillman made lay-up, and, after Newberry retook the lead, she took it back again on a made three to make it 38-36. A high-energy play came from Courtney Taylor when she finished through contact inside to go to the line and convert the and-one free throw, making it a 41-36 lead for the Cobras. From then on, it was all Cobras, all night long. Coker outscored Newberry 58-14 in the second half, scoring 29 points in each of the two periods to walk out of this one with a huge forty-point win at home.

Notables

• Tillman not only scored 30; she did so on incredible percentages. She was 10-15 from the field and 6-10 from the three-point range while also being a steady 4-4 from the charity stripe.
• Janay Legagneur had an under-the-radar performance for the Cobras, having a career-high 6 points on 3-5 shooting from the field

Up Next

The Cobras are back at home on Saturday against Lincoln Memorial, playing to clinch the South Atlantic Conference Regular Season Championship and a bid as the number one seed in the SAC Postseason Tournament. That game will tip off at 2:00 PM ET and will serve as senior day!