For the third straight year the Lady Bucs walked into Nashville and walked out with a pair of conference wins over Lipscomb and Belmont. Seniors Siarre Evans (Griffin, Ga.) and TaRonda Wiles (Danville, Va.) both registered double-doubles, as ETSU knocked off Belmont, 81-67, inside the Curb Event Center on Saturday afternoon.

Evans came off the bench to score a game-high 23 points and grabbed 11 rebounds, marking her 11th double-double of the year. Meanwhile, Wiles posted her third double-double of the season by netting 20 points and grabbing 10 boards.

With the win, the Lady Bucs notched their sixth straight victory and ETSU improved its mark to 10-7, 8-1 in A-Sun play. Belmont suffered its second consecutive loss and dipped to 9-9, 4-6.

“Coming away with a conference road win is always big,” commented head coach Karen Kemp, whose Lady Bucs have won five straight over Belmont. “We knew they were going to be ready after coming off a heartbreaking loss to Campbell on Thursday. They (Belmont) came out focused, but we matched them with a run to settle things down. Basketball is a game of runs and today we saw that on the court. Fortunately, we were able to make the final run and come away with an important victory.”

Despite only hitting one field goal in the opening six minutes of the first half, surprisingly ETSU wasn’t in too deep of a hole, as the Lady Bucs only trailed 8-5 at the 14:10 mark. From there, the Lady Bucs managed to find an inside presence, as ETSU’s post players scored the next eight points for the Blue and Gold to regain a 13-10 lead after Ashley Benedict (Rome, Ohio) hit a jumper with 11 minutes, 20 seconds showing on the clock.

The Lady Bucs continued to find some rhythm – and after Gwen Washington (Manassas, Va.) hit Evans for a break-away lay-up – ETSU led 20-12 forcing Belmont to burn a 30-second timeout with less than nine minutes to play before intermission. Eventually ETSU built an 11-point lead, 25-14, when Evans found Wiles for an easy fast-break lay-in at the 6:51 mark.

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