SPARTANBURG - The Newberry College women's basketball team took down Converse College in commanding fashion during the team's 2010-11 season opener, 62-41, Tuesday night.

Newberry (1-0) jumped out to the early lead on a LeAnne Watson (Stone Mountain, Ga.) layup and never looked back, buckling down defensively and holding Converse (0-2) to just 14 field goals during the game as they eased their way to the victory.

The Wolves held the Valkyries scoreless for the first five minutes and went into the locker room with a 26-14 advantage. Coming out of the half it was more of the same as Newberry put up 36 points in the final period while holding Converse to 27.

“It's nice to get the first one under our belt,” said Newberry head coach Sean Page. “I think we looked pretty tentative on the offensive side of the ball. I think the positives are we kept a pretty good shooting team to just 40 points and just 25 percent shooting from the field.”

The Wolves defense walked away with 11 steals, capitalizing on 24 Converse turnovers. Newberry then turned the Valkyrie ball handling woes into 15 points.

“Overall I don't think we played well, but just well enough to see what we need to work on,” added Page. “We took some bad shots in the first half and had some sloppy turnovers, but those are all things we can fix.”

The Wolves coughed the ball up 21 times themselves but allowed just nine points off those turnovers.

Newberry didn't fare well from the field either, knocking in just 17 of its 56 attempts during the game. The margin was good enough for just a 30.4 field goal percentage. The Wolves did most of their damage from the free-throw line where they were 28-of-27 from the charity stripe and from the paint where they outscored Converse 30-14.

Helen McKinney (Owensboro, Ky.) led the way for Newberry with 18 points. McKinney was just 3-for-16 from the field but sunk 12 of her 16 free-throw attempts. Brittany Brown (Fort Myers, Fla.) trailed McKinney by just one, scoring 17 and leading the Wolves from the field going five-for-seven.

The Wolves also outrebounded the Valkyries 49 to 39 and were led by Watson's 14.

Newberry opens up the home portion of its schedule this Saturday, Nov. 20, as they take on nationally ranked No. 4 Lander at 2 p.m.