On Jan. 24, the University of North Alabama Women’s Basketball team took on the visiting Kennesaw State University Owls in CB&S Bank Arena. The Lions overcame the Owls 79-60 in their second conference win at home this season, bringing the Lions’ ASUN Conference record to 3-3 and their overall record to 7-12.
The Lions were led by a 20-point performance from senior guard Alexis Callins, who scored her 1000th career point in the fourth quarter. Her milestone game makes her the first UNA Women’s Basketball player to score 1000 points entirely in UNA’s Division I era. She was followed by freshman guard Veronaye “Tweedy” Charlton, who hustled all game long to post a near double-double with her 14-point, 9-rebound night.
The game began slowly on offense for both teams, with the Lions only out-scoring the Owls 15-10 in the first quarter. The Lions seemed uncomfortable by the early full-court pressure from KSU’s defense, though they still managed to limit their own first-quarter turnovers to four.
The second quarter saw more scoring from both teams, with Charlton leading UNA’s second-quarter effort by scoring 8 points. The Lions second-quarter defense also proved to trouble the Owls, forcing seven turnovers and allowing UNA to expand their lead to 35-25 by halftime.
The third quarter saw the Lions continuing to thrive on both ends of the court, shooting 53.8 percent from the field and holding the Owls to only 11 points. The Lions seemed much more comfortable in handling pressure from the Owls and ended the quarter leading 58-36.
This momentum continued through the fourth quarter, with the Lions continuing to show dominance over KSU’s team. It was during this quarter that Callins reached the 1000-point milestone with a 3-point jumpshot, assisted by fellow senior guard Sara Wolgemuth, with 3 minutes and 59 seconds left in the game.
“It was just amazing to see the support from my teammates,” said Callins. “Even afterwards, with all of them running on the court after me. That was just the most amazing part. Just to be a part of this program for four years and to be able to build this relationship with Coach Tiber has just been great.”
“I don’t think you could have painted a better night to get a thousand for her. A big win for us.” said the Lions Head Coach Missy Tiber. “A really solid win. We were really in control in the whole second half. Then to have the timeouts and her family here; just how the team embraced her. They knew, they were counting it down on the bench. It couldn’t have been better for her.”
“We stayed the course with what we wanted to do,” said Tiber on her team’s halftime adjustments. “Our big talk in the locker room at halftime was just composure, to not let them speed us up and force us into bad decisions. We did do that. They pressed us a lot and we only had 14 turnovers, and we are prone to turnovers. But I think that’s also a testament to allowing more people to handle the ball. So there wasn’t a lot of talk about adjustments at halftime. The players were talking about composure, the coaching staff outside was talking about composure. We got together and we were like, ‘Okay, let’s just finish this by doing what we can do best.’”
“I just know that my teammates needed me to be there on both sides of the floor,” said Charlton about her mindset and attitude throughout the game. “Defense and offense; I had to get back, talk to everybody and get in our positions.”
In addition to Callins’ scoring milestone, UNA fans had another reason to celebrate the night. During halftime, the arena was filled with voices singing “Happy Birthday” to celebrate the 75th birthday of UNA’s beloved mascot, Leo the Lion. After this, a video was played featuring birthday wishes from sports mascots all across the southeast. The video included messages from UNA fans as well as the University of Alabama’s Big Al, Auburn University’s Aubie, the Nashville Predators’ Gnash, the University of South Carolina Upstate’s Sparty and many others.
