Lady Trojans drop Lees-McRae

Published in Sports on February 13, 2005 2:00 AM

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BANNER ELK -- Mount Olive College head women's basketball coach Wendy Lawrence has been looking for some outside shooting. Saturday she found it.

Shenetta Moye was a perfect 5-for-5 from three-point range and scored a career-high 19 points to lead Mount Olive to a come-from-behind 61-49 victory over Lees-McRae in Carolinas-Virginia Athletics Conference women's basketball Saturday at Banner Elk. The win is the second in a row for the Trojans and moves them back above the .500 mark in conference play.

Mount Olive (10-11 overall, 8-7 CVAC) trailed by as many as seven points in the first half before Melanie Cobb's basket ended a nearly five-minute scoring drought and keyed a 10-3 run to tie the game 20-20 with 4:21 left in the first half. The Trojans held Lees-McRae (10-12, 7-8) without a field goal over the final four minutes of the half and Moye hit the first of her five three-pointers with 1:11 remaining as the two teams went into the locker room tied 23-23 at halftime.

Latoria Harvey hit a pair of free throws 43 seconds into the second half to break the tie as the Trojans went on a 14-2 run and took a 37-25 lead with 15:19 left to play. Mount Olive would stay in the lead for the remainder of the game.

Lees-McRae pulled within nine on one occasion and cut the lead to 10 on another, but each time, Moye connected on a three-pointer to extend the lead. After a Moye three-pointer, Cobb hit a pair of free throws with 7:16 remaining to give Mount Olive its biggest lead at 51-36.

Lees-McRae made one final run as Deanna Lady scored seven consecutive points during a 9-0 run to cut the Trojans' lead to 53-47 with 2:04 left in the game. But Moye and Cobb combined to hit 5-of-6 free throws and Moye iced the game with a three-pointer with 17 seconds remaining.

Harvey finished with 12 points for the Trojans, while Cobb hit 7-of-8 free throws and added 11 points. Mount Olive had its best performance of the season from the free throw line, hitting 12-of-13 free throws in the second half and finishing 12-for-15 (80.0 percent) from the line for the game.

Lady led Lees-McRae with 16 points. Mount Olive outrebounded Lees-McRae 46-30 as the Trojans completed the regular season sweep over the Bobcats.

Mount Olive returns to action Monday as the Trojans travel to Belmont, N.C., to face Belmont Abbey in a CVAC match-up. Tip-off is 5:30 p.m. An audio webcast of the game will be available on the Mount Olive College athletics web page at www.moc.edu/athletics.

MOC men's volleyball Falls To PSU 3-0

In "Gutor vs. Gutor I," the victory goes to the son.

Alex Gutor, son of Mount Olive head coach Sasha Gutor and a sophomore at Penn State, shared match-high honors with eight kills to help lead the Nittany Lions to a 30-15, 30-18, 30-18 victory over the Trojans in men's volleyball Friday at University Park, Pa. Penn State reached the semifinals of last year's NCAA Men's Volleyball National Championship.

Albert Napoles led the Trojans with eight kills.

Mount Olive (0-2) stayed close early in game one as Steve Perezâ??s kill brought the Trojans within 7-6. But Penn State scored the next six points on its way to a 12-3 run and a double-digit lead. Mount Olive never got any closer than seven points as the Nittany Lions ended game one on a 7-0 run.

In game two, Penn State used an early run to take a 13-5 lead. The Trojans pulled within 17-11, but Penn State pulled away to take a two-game lead. In the third game, Mount Olive trailed by only 12-9 before Penn State went on an 11-3 run to take an 11-point lead and go on to seal the win.

Julio Arnaiz finished with seven kills for the Trojans, while Michael Kren added six kills. Keith Kowal also finished with eight kills for Penn State.

Mount Olive stays in University Park for one more day as the Trojans take on Rutgers Saturday. Match time is 5 p.m.