ROME, Ga. – Latisha McCullum nailed a jumper with 2.3 seconds left to hand West Alabama a 55-53 Gulf South Conference women's basketball victory over Shorter Saturday at the Winthrop-King Center.
The victory improves UWA to 6-5 overall and 3-4 in GSC play. Shorter dipped to 6-7 and 2-5. Just 11 games into the season, the Tigers have already recorded one more overall and conference win than all of last year.
"These kids just keep finding ways to stay in games," UWA head coach Rusty Cram said. "They came back from the holidays focused and in good shape. We came into this game off some of the best practices I've been around."
West Alabama trailed 31-25 at the half, but went on a 19-8 run and held Shorter scoreless for over five minutes to take the lead with just over 11 minutes to play. The Tigers and Hawks traded punches down the stretch with UWA leading by five points with 7:45 left to go.
Britney McCloud hit one of two free throw attempts to give the Tigers a 53-51 advantage with 29.6 seconds to play, but Lindsey Crawford made two free shots to knot the game at 53 with 19.4 seconds on the clock.
With one to give the Hawks fouled McCloud with 10 seconds left to set up the inbounds play to McCullum, who drained the shot from the left side.
"The great thing is that Latisha made that very same shot on the buzzer to give her team a win in our practice scrimmage earlier this week," Cram said. "Goes to show you just how important what you do in practice is."
McCloud finished with 18 points to lead UWA scoring, following by Kelcia Bufkin with 16 and Jada Williams with 10. Eight of Williams' points came down the second-half stretch. Sheila Washington and McCloud had six rebounds each for the Tigers.
"We played really good team defense in the second half and got some good minutes from several people," Cram said. "This is a contact sport and you have to be willing to get in there and mix it up."
After shooting 57-percent (12-21) in the first half, Shorter could manage just 31 percent (7-22) against a scrappy Tiger defense in the last 20 minutes.
Ieshia Alexander scored 17 points to pace Shorter. Crawford chipped in 14. Cynara Pitt collected a game-high seven rebounds.
West Alabama plays on the road for the 10th time this season Monday at Lee University. Shorter is host to West Georgia on Monday.
