HARTSVILLE – The Newberry Wolves women’s basketball team pulled off an early season upset as they downed the No. 4/11 Limestone Saints on Saturday afternoon in the Sodexo SAC/Conference Carolinas Challenge, 76-67.

The Wolves (2-0) were powered by a 19 point and 18 rebound performance from senior forward Haylee Lepaio (Bathurst, NSW, Australia). Four Newberry players ended up in double figures as they picked up their second win in as many days to open the season. Limestone had returned all five starters from a team that made the Elite Eight in the NCAA Tournament last season.

Junior guard Samantha Creed (Montmorency, Vic, Australia) had a team-high 21 points, six rebounds and seven assists. Jaya Shultz (Santa Clarita, Calif.) added 10 points and seven boards while freshman guard Nicola Handreck (Heywood, Vic, Australia) also had 10 points to be paired with four assists and three boards.

Newberry led from tip to buzzer for the second straight game as they started off today on a 15-3 run and the closest Limestone ever got was a 3-1 deficit at the 18:25 mark in the first half. A pair of defensive rebounds by Lepaio led to a Zara Pearson knocking down a 3-pointer and a midrange jumper pushed Newberry’s lead to 11 midway through the first half to kill the biggest Saints threat.

The Wolves would keep the lead at double digits for the remainder of the half and take a 34-22 advantage into the break.  

Limestone would not go down easy as Jasmine Kearse had a 34 point effort to single handedly keep the Saints in the game. She took 24 shots overall and made 11 of them. Newberry also kept the reigning Conference Carolinas defensive player in Alicia Brookins on the bench for a good part of the second half as she had 4 fouls.

Preseason All-American pick Celestra Warren only had nine points on 4-14 shooting while first team all-Conference Carolinas guard Aisha McNeil went 2-12 for six points. The Wolves defense did a number on the Saints who shot a measly 28 percent for game.

Newberry on the other hand shot 50 percent from the field and 47 percent from behind the arc. It was the second game in a row Newberry made at least half of their field goal attempts.

The Wolves will take a few days off before playing again at Coker on Wednesday to open South Atlantic Conference play as they play the Cobras at 6 p.m.