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usm-ucf box score

Southern Miss Comes From Behind For a 59-54 Win

Stueber scored a game-high 24 points

Biland pours in 17 points and grabs seven rebounds

Orlando, Fla. – Southern Miss’ freshmen duo of Shannon Stueber and Liz Biland combined for 41 of the Lady Eagles’ 59 points, leading Southern Miss to a 59-54 win over future Conference USA opponent UCF. Southern Miss improved to 2-1, while UCF dropped to 1-2.

Stueber led all scorers with 24 points and Biland added 17 points.  Dianca Jones led Southern Miss with eight rebounds.  UCF’s Claudia Johnson came off the bench to lead the Knights with 16 points.  Ali Roberts pulled down nine rebounds.

“This is a good win for us,” Head Coach Joye Lee-McNelis said. “This is a confidence builder.  I am proud of the way we played in the second half.  We played as solid as we could have in the second half.  We made the right adjustments at halftime and I thought our players did a great job making the adjustments.”

Southern Miss used a 9-2 run to start the second half, taking a 34-33 lead at the 15:42 mark.  UCF then used an 11-0 run over 2:34 for a 45-43 lead with 13:08 remaining. The Lady Eagles regrouped and out scored UCF, 17-2, over the next 7:41 to take the lead for good, 51-49.  UCF tied the game at 51-51 with 4:52 remaining, before Southern Miss used a 6-0 run to push its lead to 56-51.

Southern Miss jumped out to an early lead, building as many as a five points on two occasions, with the last 19-14 at the 8:06 mark.  UCF tied the game at 19-19 with 5:33, but the Lady Eagles pushed its lead to six, 25-19, with 34:36 remaining following a Kelsey Gurganus three-pointer, which turned out to be the last basket of the half for Southern Miss.

“I thought we played with a lot of heart,” McNelis said.  “We got the ball in the hands of the right people.  Dianca Jones gave us a tremendous amount of energy today.  We showed that we could win, being ahead under 10 minutes against Arkansas-Little Rock and today we showed we could win after being down 11 with 12 minutes.”

UCF then closed out the half with a 12-0 run over 4:20 to take a 31-25 lead into intermission. Claudia Johnson scored eight points of her 11 first half points during that run.  Neither team shot well from the field with Southern Miss shooting 32 percent (9-of-28) and UCF shooting 29 percent (9-of-31). The difference came from the free line with UCF connecting on 9-of-10 from the line, while Southern made 3-of-4.

“We did a much better job defensively in the second half,” McNelis said.  “In the first half, we did not do a good job on either end.  UCF kind of scored at will.”

Southern Miss returns to action on Dec. 3-4, when the Lady Eagles host their own Lady Eagle Classic.  The Lady Eagles open tournament play against Columbia on Friday at 5:30 p.m., followed by American and Austin Peay at 7:30 p.m.  The consolation and championship games are set for noon and 2 p.m., on Saturday.