Kilpatrick’s 21 points leads Winthrop over Chants

“We won.”

They’re words that Winthrop women’s basketball coach Kevin Cook hasn’t had many chances to say in post-game encounters with the media this season.

But a 52-43 Eagles victory over Coastal Carolina in front of 315 fans at Winthrop Coliseum on Saturday afternoon gave him that satisfying opportunity.

Junior forward Aliyah Kilpatrick scored a game high 21 points, sophomore guard CiiCii Buford added 12 and sophomore guard Ronata Rogers pulled down 12 rebounds as the injury-plagued Eagles (4-19, 3-11 Big South) broke a four-game losing streak and moved out of sole possession of last place in the conference.

Nicole Isaacs scored 12 points to lead the visiting Chanticleers (8-15, 3-11), who had just broken a five-game losing streak with a win over High Point earlier in the week.

“I’m proud of the team,” Cook said. “We’ve had a lot of adversity but we’ve stayed positive. I liked the pace of the game. These players aren’t worried about resting their weary bones.”

Turning point

Sophomore guard Naima Jackson made just two field goals in the game, but both were big. She drilled a fadeaway three-pointer from about 30 feet away at the third quarter buzzer from give the Eagles a 38-36 lead going into the last 10 minutes.

Then she opened the fourth quarter scoring with a putback and Winthrop never led by less than four after that.

“That shot (the three-pointer) gave us the energy to finish the game,” Cook said.

Critical

Slow starts have plagued Winthrop in most of its losses and it looked like they were headed in that direction again when the Chanticleers scored the game’s first seven points. But a 9-2 run gave the Eagles their first lead at 11-9 and a chance to start over.

The game was tied 11-11 after one quarter and the Eagles led 23-22 at halftime.

Quote

“Today we just got after it. We were hungry for a win. We hope this will give us some momentum and we’re ready to see what the next game will bring.” — Kilpatrick

Star Contributions

Kilpatrick, Winthrop: Best hidden stat of the game: The junior guard’s 21 points included a clutch 6-of-8 performance from the free throw line. That made up for the rest of the team shooting 5-for-16.

CiiCii Buford, Winthrop: Sophomore guard hit 3-of-6 three-pointers on the way to a career high in points

Arianne Whitaker, Winthrop: With only six players playing major minutes, foul trouble is more of a concern for the Eagles than usual for a team. The freshman forward picked up foul No. 3 early in the second half but played most of the rest of the way, finishing with nine rebounds.

On Deck

Winthrop’s next two games are on the road, at Campbell on Tuesday and at High Point on Saturday. The next home game is at 7 p.m. Feb. 23 against Radford.

Box score

This story was originally published February 13, 2016 at 4:47 PM with the headline "Kilpatrick’s 21 points leads Winthrop over Chants."