The UNA women’s basketball team won 58-51 game against West Georgia at Flowers Hall Tuesday night, giving the Lions a Gulf South Conference win after Saturday’s loss to UA-Huntsville.

The win gives the Lions an overall record of 12-8 and a record of 3-5 in conference play. It also breaks a three-game GSC losing streak.

“We are so excited,” said senior guard Jessi Smith. “Saturday’s loss was awful, and we’ve just kind of been down, but we said ‘This is a new seven games; it’s kind of like a new little mini-season.’ So we’re 1-0 right now, and we’re headed in the winning direction.”

Smith was a key player in the game, scoring 10 points in the second half, with 13 points overall. Another key player was Jasmine Horne. She scored 15, with 11 points in the first half.

“We just kept working hard and moving the ball around, and I was the lucky one who got the shot off,” Smith said.

The Lions’ scoring percentage improved from 32 percent in Saturday’s game against UA-Huntsville to 41.7 percent against West Georgia. UNA women’s basketball head coach Terry Fowler said the team focused mostly on shooting during practice leading up to Tuesday’s game.

The Lions were aggressive in the first half, shooting 47.8 percent. The team got off to a sluggish start in the second half, however, when the Lions shot as low as 35 percent before coming back to win the game.

“(I told the team to) just keep grinding, keep going, but the biggest thing is we started making shots,” Fowler said.

The Lions won the game despite having 21 turnovers, 13 of which were in the first half. Turnovers resulted in 14 points for West Georgia in the first half.

“We just have to take care of the basketball,” Fowler said.

The Lions will play West Alabama, another GSC team, this Saturday at 1 p.m. in Flowers Hall.