Dec. 3, 2006
Using its best defensive performance of the season and numerous individual season-best performances, the South Carolina women’s basketball team routed Fordham 77-38 Sunday at the Colonial Center. With the win, the Gamecocks improve to 5-3 on the season. Fordham drops to 1-6 with the loss.
Stacy Booker ended a two-game scoring drought with a season-high 19 points, scoring all but three of them in the second half. Sophomore Brionna Dickerson’s 10 points tied her career-high while Iva Sliskovic hit double-digit rebounds for the first time this season with 10 boards. Shannel Harris led the Carolina defensive effort with two blocks to tie her career-high.
Sliskovic earned her first defensive rebound of the game with 10:16 remaining in the first half to tie Shaunzinski Gortman for fifth place on the All-Time defensive rebounding list with 406 boards. She then claimed sole possession of fifth place with her 407th defensive rebound 54 seconds later.
Lauren Simms helped lead South Carolina to an early 12-5 lead before Fordham junior Beth Troutt hit a trey with 13:34 remaining in the first half. The Gamecocks then used stifling defense to hold the Rams scoreless for the next 9:26 as Carolina went on an 18-0 run to blow the game away. Six players scored during the run, led by Demetress Adams’s four points, to give Carolina a 30-11 lead.
Carolina followed the end of it’s 18-0 outburst with an 8-0 run over the next nine minutes, led by Brionna Dickerson’s six points. Fordham’s Lisa Carrol hit a three-pointer with seven seconds remaining to make the game 38-14 heading into the half.
The Gamecocks registered 14 steals in the first half, including six during the 18-0 run that put the game out of reach. Carolina played 12 of 13 players on its active roster in the first half with nine scoring in the opening period. Sliskovic and Simms both registered season-high numbers in assists and steals in the first half, with Sliskovic getting two of each and Simms recording four assists and two steals. Sliskovic finished the game with three assists and a career-high four steals while Simms finished with a season-high five steals and a career-high seven assists.
It was more of the same in the second half as Carolina continued to use pressing defense to generate a season-high 25 steals en route to the 77-38 victory.
Carolina forced 29 turnovers in the game and registered a 30-2 margin in points off turnovers. The Gamecocks out rebounded Fordham 43-30 and outscored the Rams 40-14 in the paint.
The Gamecocks will host the Oklahoma Sooners Thursday night at 7 p.m. at the Colonial Center. It will be the first meeting between the two schools and Carolina’s first game against a ranked opponent this season as Oklahoma stands at No. 3 in both the Associated Press and the USA Today Coach’s Polls.
