Jan. 29, 2007

Final Stats |   

Cullowhee, N.C. - Sophomore transfer Brooke Johnson led a trio of Lady Catamounts in double figures, scoring a career-high 22 points as Western Carolina rattled off their seventh-straight victory on Monday evening, dousing the Elon Phoenix, 77-66, at the Ramsey Center. The win coupled with Chattanooga's triumph over UNC Greensboro (83-66) leaves the Lady Mocs and Western tied for first atop the Southern Conference standings, half a game ahead of the idle Davidson Wildcats, who happens to be WCU's next opponent on Saturday evening.

Johnson scored WCU's first 11 points en route to 18 in the first half, which surpassed her Lady Catamount career-best by a point in just 20 minutes. Johnson finished 6-of-7 from the floor with a career-best three, 3-pointers, adding a 7-for-7 showing from the free throw line and four defensive rebounds. She also blocked one shot to move into a tie for seventh with Teresa Braswell (1981-82) on the single-season blocks chart.

Sophomore Lauren Powell drained a pair of 3-pointers of her own to score 15 points, adding a career-high five assists, while junior guard Ashley Pellom continued her torrent streak, connecting on 6-of-7 from the field for the second-straight game to finish with 13 points. Pellom added four assists in the win to move into a tie for eighth-place on Western's all-time career assists chart.

Junior Chevon Keith just missed double-digits with nine points and seven rebounds, while her classmate Jessika Johnson led with a game-high nine rebounds, eight of which came on the defensive end. Sophomore Kendra Eaton chipped in seven points and five rebounds, while freshman Kristen Feemster tied her career-high with four points in the victory.

Elon took an early 2-0 lead when Tiffany Davis stole a WCU pass and found the range on a fast-break lay-up, breaking a two-minute scoreless drought to open the game. Western, however, answered with a Brooke Johnson lay-up and foul for the old-fashioned three-point play to put the Lady Catamounts ahead, 3-2. The lay-in was the first 11-straight points for Johnson, including a pair of 3-pointers as the Seymour, Tenn., native outscored the Phoenix by herself over the first 8:14.

Leading by seven (11-4) at the 15:13 mark, the Phoenix used six-unanswered points to close back to within one, 11-10, holding WCU scoreless for four and a half minutes. Powell ended the drought with a shot from long range which ignited an 11-to-2 run to push Western ahead by 10, 22-12. Still up 10, 24-14, the Phoenix strung together 12-straight points to erase the deficit and pull ahead by two, 26-24, with four and a half to play before intermission. However, over the final four minutes, Western outscored Elon 14-to-2 to take a 10-point, 38-28, lead into the half.

Western shot 48-percent (12-of-25) from the field in the first half, including 4-of-5 from 3-point range for 80-percent and 10-of-12 from the free throw line, 83.3-percent. Elon countered with 34.4-percent (11-of-32) and was just 2-of-7 from downtown (28.6%).

Out of the half time locker room, Powell sank a lay-up and drew a foul six-seconds in to put Western up 13, prompting an Elon timeout. After the stoppage, the Phoenix tallied back-to-back jumpers to slice the deficit to nine, but that was as close as Elon would get over the final 20 minutes. WCU surged back ahead by double-figures on a 3-pointer by Lynsie Lamitie and the Lady Catamounts held the Phoenix at arms length the remainder of the game.

Like Western, Elon (9-13, 3-8 SoCon) put three players in double-figures led by a career-high 18 from the freshman Davis and 10 apiece from senior Nikko King and junior Nicole Allison. King added eight rebounds, seven of which came on the defensive end, with Davis adding six boards, four assists and four steals.

Elon's 66 points marked the first time since Nov. 30 of this season that the Phoenix had scored over 60 points. The Phoenix had been unbeaten when surpassing the 60-point plateau. Western, on the other hand, improved to 9-0 when scoring 70-or-more points in a contest.

The Lady Catamounts out rebounded Elon, 39-to-31, and finished with its best shooting performance of the season, 53.1-percent (26-of-49).

Elon returns to action this Saturday (Feb. 3) at Georgia Southern at 5:00 pm. Western hits the road for a pair of crucial games in the SoCon race this week, visiting Davidson on Saturday, in the Belk Arena at 6:00 pm and traveling to Boone to face arch-rival Appalachian State on Monday (Feb. 5) at 7:00 pm. Both games will be broadcast by the Catamount Sports Network, with Saturday's game airing on WWCU-FM, Power 90dot5 in Cullowhee (www.WWCUFM.com) and Monday night's affair carried on www.CatamountSports.com.