LINCOLN UNIVERSITY, Pa. — Freshmen Brittney Waters (Capitol Heights, Md./Charles H. Flowers) (Capitol Heights, Md./Charles H. Flowers) and Danielle Smallwood (Philadelphia, PA/West Catholic) (Philadelphia, Pa./West Catholic) displayed that the future of the Lincoln's women's basketball is indeed bright.
Seeing significant minutes at critical junctures, the duo showed poise, the ability to score and lead their teammates.
Smallwood scored nine and Waters seven in a 91-73 loss to Virginia Union Thursday evening at Manuel Rivero Hall.
There were also the usual suspects. DeJuana Mosley (Chester, PA/Chester) (Chester, Pa./Chester) had a career-high 25 points while Sharay DuBose (Salisbury, Md./Parkside HS) (Salisbury, Md./Parkside) contributed 20.
Tonaye Smith, the CIAA's leading scorer entering the game with an 18.5 average, had 35 points and 10 boards. Lincoln, coming off one of the biggest wins Sunday in an upset of rival Cheyney University, began strong offensively, leading in the early going.
Mosley (Chester, Pa./Chester) was feeling her groove for most of the first half recording 12 points.
Tahlar MacIntosh (Pittsburgh, Pa./Mt. Alvernia)— also a freshman — had a fearless drive to the basket and was fouled. Her free throw put Lincoln a point behind Virginia Union, 11-10 with 13:10 left in the opening stanza.
Virginia Union's Lavonna Spencer, Yuovonna Stevens and Kara Scott were all driving forces. Spencer drained a long-three and a clutch jump shot with 11minutes left to give VU an 8-point lead.
A finger-roll and a free-throw by VU's Smith with 7:10 remaining increased the lead to 14-31.
After going down by as much as 26 points at 40-14 with five minutes to go, Mosley tried to hype up her team by draining a three with 3:10 left first and going one of two at the line on LU's next possession.
It seemingly worked.
Waters, with energy off the bench, hit a three and lay-up to help Lincoln score, 46-29.
Dubose free throws with 30 seconds left in the first half allowed Lincoln to go into the locker room trailing just 49-33.
The momentum continued out of the locker room as the deficit dwindled to 12 following a long three with Mosley and more free throws in the second.
However, Smith, with 15 points in the first half had an even larger roll in the second half, and the VUU advanced grew once more.
With the loss, Lincoln falls to 3-17 on the year while Virginia improves to 6-13. Lincoln travels to Saint Paul's College in Lawrenceville, Va., before returning for three consecutive home games beginning Monday at 5:30 p.m. against Virginia State.
— LU —
