Lady Braves basketball strive for a strong finish to season

By Brad Ciociola
Staff Writer

With nine games remaining this season, the Lady Braves basketball team is ready to make some noise down the stretch.

While only 7-13, only six total points have outscored the Lady Braves in over 18 games, leaving a scoring margin of -0.3.

Head Coach Sandy Littleton believes that stats are a testament to how hard her young team has worked.

“We’ve been very competitive. In the first half of the season we won three games by three or less points and lost three games by three or less points, so we’ve been right there in every game but two,” she said.

The Lady Braves are very young with only two juniors and no seniors.

“This is a very young team,” Littleton said, “but we are a better team today than we were in our first practice.”

“We have been improving every game and coming together more as a team,” team captain Natasha Stotler said. “If we continue to do that we’ll win games.”

Littleton went on to say to win down the stretch, “We’re going to have to limit our turnovers and keep playing as a team,” she said. The upcoming opponents will not help the Lady Braves as all of the remaining games are against Peach Belt teams.

“We play in the toughest division II women’s conference in the nation,” Littleton said.“The Peach Belt Conference has four nationally-ranked teams and nine teams with winning records.”

Weather gave the Lady Braves a break with the Jan. 28 game against USC Aiken being cancelled due to an ice storm. The break, coming off a win at Clayton College and State, gave the team more practice time and a little longer to savor the win before heading into a Jan. 31 home game versus Armstrong Atlantic State.

“If we had lost the previous game the break probably wouldn’t have helped,” said Coach Littleton, “but since we won it helps,” said Stotler, whose averaging 17 points per game. While they were prepared for the game the extra time helps, giving more time for practice coming off a nice victory.

The squad dropped a tough game to Armstrong Atlantic State as the Braves had turnover trouble and no answer for an 8-0 run in the final minutes as AASU stole a 51-48 victory at the Jones Athletic Complex.

The Lady Braves now look forward to USC Spartanburg on Feb. 14.