Box Score ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - A cold shooting day resulted in the Eckerd women's basketball team dropping its first home game of the season as Rollins escaped the McArthur Center with a 69-54 win on Saturday.
The No. 16/18 Tritons (18-4, 11-2 SSC) shot just 32.2 percent from the field and 21.7 percent from 3-point range in the loss and suffered their worst performance of the season on the boards as the Tars out-rebounded EC, 51-30.
"Overall I thought we struggled today on both ends of the floor," said EC head coach
Paul Honsinger. Â "We got beaten really bad on the boards despite our focus on it pre-game. Â Offensively, we got some open shots but couldn't knock them down and that wore on us over 40 minutes."
To make matters worse,
Victoria Vine - the team's leading scorer - went down midway through the second quarter with an injury and didn't return.
The Tritons led 16-14 at the end of the first quarter, but Rollins (15-6, 9-4 SSC) went on an 11-3 to open the second quarter and never surrendered the lead.
The third quarter, though, was the difference.  Only trailing by three at the half, EC was outscored 17-7 in the next 10 minutes as the Tars' lead reached as many as 18 points.
Eckerd was only able to pull within 12 in the fourth quarter. Â Rollins preserved its lead by going 9-for-12 from the free-throw line in the final two minutes of the game.
Ashley Folsom led Eckerd with 10 points while Vine,
Anna Deegan,
Kacie Juday and
Chelsea Johnson all had nine.
The Tritons' lead in the SSC was cut to a game over Florida Southern with next week's opponents - Tampa and Nova Southeastern - 1.5 and 2 games back respectively.
The win for Rollins was its seventh in a row.
Eckerd travels to face Tampa on Wednesday at 5:30 PM.
