Dec. 9, 2006

Box Score

TROY, Ala. - The Samford women's basketball team made 16-of-17 free throws in the last 13:28 to pull out a 54-51 win at Troy Saturday afternoon.

Samford (6-3) shot 92.6 (25-of-27) percent from the free throw line in the game. Alex Munday, who led the team with 20 points, made 10-of-10 from the charity stripe. Veronica Pike added 10 points for the Bulldogs. Chelsee Insell had a game-high eight rebounds.

Troy (6-3) was led by Valensia Hairston with 20 points.

"We won that one of the old-fashioned way, it was not very pretty," Samford head coach Mike Morris said. "We made some stops down the stretch. They had our number for a little bit, but we made some stops and made some free throws."

Samford jumped out to an early 12-4 lead with 13:05 to go in the first half on a three-pointer by Tish Pilkerton. After Troy cut the lead to five at 12-7, Samford pushed its lead out to nine at 16-7 with 11:03 to go on a pair of free throws by Munday.

Troy then scored the next six in a row to cut the Samford lead to three at 16-13 with 8:27 to go in the half. With Samford leading, 20-15, Troy went on a 7-2 run to tie the score at 22-22 with 2:04 to play in the half. Troy took a brief 26-25 lead, but Samford took a 27-26 lead into halftime after Munday hit two free throws with 7.6 seconds to go in the half.

The teams stayed close throughout the second half. Troy took its first lead of the half at 35-32 with 15:00 to go on a three-pointer by Larelle Roper. After Samford tied the game on a three-pointer by Munday, Troy's Hairston put the Trojans back on top at 37-35 with a pair of free throws at the 14:22 mark.

With Samford leading, 43-42 with 12:26 to go, the teams went scoreless for over three minutes until Pike pushed Samford's lead to three at 45-42 with two free throws with 9:20 left in the game.

Troy scored the next five points to take a 47-45 lead with 6:13 remaining in the contest. Samford retook the lead at 48-47 on three free throws by Taryn Towns. The lead went back and forth over the next few minutes, until Samford, trailing 51-50, took the lead for good at 52-51 on a pair of free throws by Munday with 58 seconds left. Munday made two more free throws with 24 seconds left to seal the win.

Samford will return to action on Dec. 17 when the Bulldogs play at Murray State at 2:00 p.m.