No. 20 AUM stifles Birmingham Southern, moves to 10-0 | Schools

The No. 20 Auburn Montgomery women’s basketball team continued its trend of playing smothering defense, defeating Birmingham-Southern 54-47 for its 10th straight victory to start the season.

Kamesha Strong and Keisha Moore each had 14 points to lead the Warhawks offensively. Tina Odume also came up big off the bench, contributing eight points and six rebounds. Including an exhibition against Samford last Tuesday, it was the fourth road game in eight days for AUM.

“We really gutted out a win tonight against a tough team,” Head Coach Dan Davis said. “Give Birmingham-Southern credit, they came ready to play. They showed us some things defensively that we hadn’t seen all year. I thought our girls showed a lot of toughness tonight. We really played well.”

The Warhawks shot the ball well tonight, hitting 45.5 percent of their shots from the field. Strong made 7-of-13 field goal attempts, while Moore went 5-of-10 and also had a team-high eight rebounds.

Birmingham-Southern (2-5) was limited to 34 percent shooting. AUM has now held its opponent under 50 points in eight of its 10 victories.

“You’ve got to credit the girls,” Davis said. “We just have not let up on the defensive end. They know that our defense is the reason for our good start to the season. We feel that we can always rely on our defense to keep us in the game.”
AUM dominated in the paint, with a 34-18 scoring advantage inside for the game. The Warhawks also generated 14 points off of 18 Panther turnovers, while Birmingham-Southern got only three points off 16 AUM giveaways.

The Warhawks led 23-19 at the intermission. A 3-pointer from Panther guard Elizabeth Bromirski cut the game to 49-45 with 2:59 remaining, but AUM scored the next five points to put the game away. Alex Adams led Birmingham-Southern with 12 points and 10 rebounds.

Davis credited the performances of Odume and Strong as key components of tonight’s victory.

“Every night, somebody different is stepping up for us,” he said. “Tina Odume gave us a real pickup off the bench with her interior play, and Kamesha was a warrior in the second half.”

LaKenya Drayton added six points and six rebounds, while Katie Williams had a team-high four assists.

AUM returns to action on Friday, with only its third home game of the season against No. 2 Freed-Hardeman, which is 8-0 to start the season. The matchup between the two undefeated teams begins at 5:30 p.m. at the AUM Gymnasium.

Web Link: http://www.aumathletics.com/article/1055.php

Source:  AUM Sports Information Director