By Staff
ECU Sports Information
GREENVILLE — The East Carolina women’s basketball team won its second consecutive contest Saturday afternoon, gutting out a 70-64 victory over Conference USA rival UAB before 1,726 inside Minges Coliseum.
Jean Best converted an early three-point play to help give ECU (12-7, 3-3) earn early 13-10 lead over UAB (7-13, 2-5).
UAB’s Britney Jones took over the next few minutes, netting two straight threes to push the Blazers ahead by three. However, the Lady Pirates’ Allison Spivey hit a trey of her own to give East Carolina a 21-19 advantage.
UAB used a 13-5 run to go up 32-26. ECU pulled within 32-29 at the half.
The Lady Pirates began to close the gap at the beginning of the second half and eventually took the lead, 39-38, when Kim Gay hit a mid-range jumper at the 15:53 mark.
Spivey hit her third trey of the contest to give the Lady Pirates a five-point lead.
The Blazers fought back, pulling within 53-52 on a Fatiha Salaam layup.
But LaCoya Terry took over the rest of the game, scoring eight points in the final five minutes to help the Lady Pirates pull away.
Five players scored in double figures for ECU. Best and Terry both netted 13 while Jasmine Young, Spivey and Gay (10 rebounds) collected 12, 11 and 10, respectively.
ECU hits the road next week for a pair of C-USA contests at UCF (Thursday) and Southern Miss (Saturday) before returning home Feb. 5 to face defending C-USA champion UTEP.