Feb. 5, 2011

Box Score

GREENVILLE, S.C. - Samford senior guard Emily London scored 23 points to become the women's basketball program's career scoring leader in a 63-54 Southern Conference win at Furman Saturday afternoon.

London now has now scored 1,605 points in her Samford career. The previous record was 1,603, set by Alex Munday from 2003-08.

"Emily is an outstanding player and a special player," Samford head coach Mike Morris said. "Now she's the all-time leading scorer in the history of our program and that's a credit not only to her ability, but also to her work ethic. As talented as she is, she is one of the hardest working players we have ever had in this program."

Samford shot 59.1 percent in the second half after making just 37.9 percent of its shots in the first half. For the game, the Bulldogs made 47.1 percent of their shots. Samford held Furman to just 37.7 percent shooting and 38.5 percent in the second half.

"I thought one of the keys of the game was Savannah (Hill) and Hannah (Dawson) at the start of the second half scoring around the goal," Morris said. "We missed a lot of layups early in the first half and I thought to start the second half, they really set the tone of scoring around the goal."

Samford has now won six games in a row, with the last two wins coming on the road. The Bulldogs improved to 18-6 overall and 11-4 in Southern Conference play. Furman drops to 9-13 overall and 5-8 in SoCon games. The loss for Furman was the first home loss of the season.

"I think our team has progressed," Morris said. "We are still a work in progress, but we've gotten better and tougher. We've been able to take some things from the way we've played at home on the road. We separated in the second half and when they made their run, we separated again."

Behind London for Samford, Savannah Hill scored 13 points, grabbed nine rebounds and dished out five assists. Hannah Dawson added 10 points in the win for Samford.

Furman was led by Kaitlin Murphy with 19 points and six rebounds. Kendra Berry added 13 points and seven rebounds, while Kelly O'Connor scored 11 points for the Paladins.

The teams traded baskets early in the game until, with Samford leading 9-8, the Bulldogs went on a 7-0 run to take a 16-8 lead with 10:06 to go in the first half after a basket by Jazmine Martin. Back-to-back three-pointers by Furman cut the Samford lead to two at 16-14 with 7:20 to go in the first half.

With Samford leading, 19-18, back-to-back three-pointers by London pushed Samford's lead out to seven at 25-18 with 4:18 left in the opening half. Furman closed the half with an 8-2 run to cut Samford's lead to 27-26 heading into halftime.

Samford opened the second half with a 7-2 run to push its lead out to six at 34-28 with 17:49 to go in the game after a three-pointer by Dawson. Samford extended its lead out to 12 points at 46-34 with 13:29 to go after a layup by Hill.

Furman answered with a 7-0 run to cut the Samford lead to five points at 46-41 with 10:43 left in the game. Samford came back with a 7-0 run of its own to take a 53-41 lead with 7:16 to go in the game following a layup by Jazmine Powers.

The Paladins then went on a 10-2 run to pull to within four points at 55-51 with 3:57 left in the contest. With Samford leading, 58-53, the Bulldogs scored five of the final six points in the game to pull out the 63-54 win.

Samford will be in action again Monday evening when the Bulldogs play at Wofford. The game is scheduled for a 5 p.m. (CST) start from Spartanburg, S.C.