The Transylvania women’s basketball team erased a double-digit second half deficit to earn a 65-60 win against the Anderson University Ravens at O.C. Lewis Gymnasium on Saturday afternoon.
The win represented an illustrious milestone for seventh-year head coach Juli Fulks, who notched her 300th career victory. Fulks has won 20 or more games in five of her first six years at Transylvania and won her 142nd game as head coach at Transylvania after amassing 158 victories in 10 years at Lewis & Clark College.
Transylvania improved to 5-3 overall on the season and expanded its winning streak against Division III opponents to five games. The Saturday victory vaulted the Pioneers to a 2-0 start in Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference play with their Week 1 sweep of the Ravens.
After handing the Ravens an 18-point loss on Thursday in Lexington, the Pioneers witnessed a red-hot shooting exhibition in the first half from Anderson’s Lexi Dellinger, who hit 5 of 6 three-pointers to hand her Ravens a 35-28 halftime lead over Transylvania.
The Ravens as a team shot 7 for 10 from three-point range in the first half and 72 percent from the field overall but the Pioneers took immaculate care of the basketball, winning the turnover margin in the first half by nine to stay within reach.
Grace Shope kept the Pioneers in contention with eight first-half points and Madison Kellione joined in with seven points in the opening half. Kellione finished the day with a career-high 24 points, hitting 11 of 13 free throws and 6 of 12 field goals.
Elizabeth Hardiman trimmed the Anderson lead to 35-31 on the first possession of the half with a triple but the Ravens responded with a 12-3 run to build their largest lead of the game at 47-34 with six minutes left in the third quarter.
Laken Ball and Dasia Thornton helped end a scoring drought for Transy with back-to-back scores to cut the Anderson advantage to 47-41 at the 3:55 mark. Kellione and Sydney Morris each hit a pair of free throws to keep the comeback going and Kellione scored on a layup with seven seconds left in the quarter to slice Anderson’s lead to three points entering the fourth quarter.
Transy scored six straight points to open the fourth quarter for a 53-50 lead on Anderson. The Ravens stemmed the tide with a three-pointer and a layup and the teams began trading baskets in a back-and-forth final quarter.
Leading 58-57 with two and a half minutes to go, the Pioneers came up big defensively with a steal by Shope which led to another pair of free throws by Kellione, translating to a 60-57 Transylvania advantage with 2:06 left in the game.
The Pioneers continued to make clutch defensive stops as Kellione and Morris conspired for five more made free throws in the closing minutes to deliver win number 300 to their head coach.
Thornton led the Pioneers with nine rebounds and was the other double-digit scorer with 12 points. Transylvania won the turnover battle with eight giveaways while forcing Anderson into 22 turnovers. The Pioneers made 20 of 26 free throws as Kellione led the charge from the charity stripe.
The Pioneers return to action on Thursday, January 21 to host the Mount St. Joseph University Lions at the Beck Center in Lexington. Transylvania and Mount St. Joseph are scheduled to tip-off at 7:00 p.m. in the first of a two-game set for the teams next week.
