NEWBERRY – The Newberry College women’s basketball team won its second game in a row as they knocked off Lenoir-Rhyne at home on Wednesday night, 65-43.

With the Wolves (15-8, 11-6) leading 21-20, they used an 11-0 run spanning just over four minutes late in the first half and never looked back. Senior forward Haylee Lepaio (Bathurst, NSW, Australia) scored six of the 11 points during the run to make it 32-20 with 46 seconds left in the half and Newberry’s lead remained in double digits for the remainder of the contest.

Lepaio had a season-high 24 points to go along with 13 rebounds for a double-double. She moved into third place all-time at Newberry with the 13 rebounds passing Peggy Barnes.

The Wolves also got 14 points from freshman point guard Nicola Handreck (Heywood, Vic, Australia) as the Wolves won their first South Atlantic Conference game this season in which they failed to put three players in double digit scoring.

Newberry had an impressive 22 assists on their 26 field goals with the main distributors being Samantha Creed (Montmorency, Vic, Australia) who had eight of them and Zara Pearson (Echuca, Vic, Australia) who had seven assists. Pearson tied a career-high and also moved into seventh place all-time at Newberry in assists with 286 in her career.

In stark contrast, Lenoir-Rhyne (7-14, 6-11) only had three assists on their 18 made field goals and struggled to get open looks against the Wolves defense.

The Wolves shot the ball 26-for-54 for a total of 48.1 percent while stifling the Bears who only shot 18-for-59 which equates to 30.5 percent. The Bears and Wolves had a push on the glass with each brining down 37 rebounds.

Newberry only shot 2-for-10 from 3-point range in the first half but they were able to go 5-for-10 in the second half as the lead swelled to 65-43 by the end of the contest and concluded on a 7-0 run. Lenoir-Rhyne only went 2-for-15 from the field to end the game including missing all of their last seven shots.

Newberry will now travel to Tusculum on Saturday as they look to sweep their fourth SAC team this year. The Wolves have already swept Coker, Catawba and Brevard.  

There is still a tie for third place in the SAC standings with Newberry and Catawba but the Scarlet and the Gray sweeping the regular season they hold the tiebreaker.

The game is set for a 2 p.m. start.