Western Carolina’s Laura Echols recorded her sixth double-double of the season to lead the Catamount women’s basketball team to an 85-79 victory over the Lady Bucs on Saturday afternoon at Ramsey Activity Center.
With the victory, the Catamounts improve to 10-4 overall, which is their best start since going 10-4 to open the 1980-81 season. ETSU fell to 7-8 overall and 2-4 in Southern Conference action.
Echols double-double, of 27 points on 12 of 16 shooting and pulled down 11 rebounds, marked her fourth double-double in the past five games and sixth time the SoCon’s leading scorer has posted at least 25 points in a game this season.
For the Lady Bucs, sophomore Lauren Trantham scored a career-high 20 points, almost 10 points above her season average. Trantham was 8 of 9 from the field and 4 of 4 from the free throw line.
Megan Jackson and Erin Thurman joined Trantham in double figures with 12 and 11 points, respectively.
Western Carolina jumped out to an early 6-0 lead and did not surrender the advantage until 9:49 remained in the first half when Candace Gibson hit a layup to give the Lady Bucs a 22-20 lead.
With the game knotted at 31 with 3:33 left in the first half, Western Carolina went on a 9-1 run to lead 40-32 with 32 seconds left.
A three-pointer by Leslie Burleson and a layup by Misty Copas, however, cut the Catamounts advantage to only three at the break.
ETSU went on a 15-3 run to take the lead by five at 54-49 at the 13:06 mark in the second half.
Trantham scored six points to spark the run.
A three-pointer by Western Carolina’s Katie Scott gave Western a 65-61 lead with 7:39 to play. The Lady Bucs, though, once again tied it up.
A layup by Gibson tied the score at 69 before Echols answered immediately as Western Carolina would not surrender the lead the remainder of the game.
The Lady Bucs return home on Monday to host UNC Greensboro at 7 p.m.

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