Lady Senators win 4th straight, blow past Dyersburg State

MORRISTOWN, TN – Walters State broke out to a 40-10 halftime lead on Saturday afternoon against Dyersburg State and never looked back, cruising to a 71-31 TCCAA victory.

With the win, the Lady Senators improve to 4-2 on the season and are 4-0 in TCCAA play. After dropping their first two games of the season to ranked opponents, Walters State has rallied off four straight victories.

"Our defense was really good from the start," Walters State coach Jasmin Coleman said. "We got a lot of stuff off our defense. We just guarded people and got down and put pressure on them. We did a good job today." 

For the sixth straight game, Kiera Hill led the way for the Lady Senators with 18 points and 11 rebounds. It's her fourth double-double of the season.

Dyersburg doubled, and even tripled, teamed Hill at times in the game, but she was able to find a way to get to the basket or dish it out to her teammates.

"Kiera is getting doubled and tripled teamed, and we are just making adjustments from it," Coleman said. "We're ok with other teams doing that. We made adjustments tonight when that happened, and it worked." 

Along with Hill, Maiya Reed had another solid game with nine points. Reed has stepped in as the point guard for the Lady Senators and has slowly worked her way into learning how to play the Walters State way.

"She's just growing," Coleman said. "Being a freshman and being a point guard here is the toughest position. It weighs so much on what we do. She's always been the hardest worker. She's just got to keep growing up. That is what is happening right now and leading to her success." 

Things started off quick for Walters State as Hill and Reed scored the first eight points for the Lady Senators. The lead was 8-4 before Walters State went on a 10-2 run to close out the quarter. Hill had 12 points in the first quarter. 

The onslaught continued for Walters State in the second quarter as they outscored Dyersburg 22-4. It was a variety of players in the quarter as Rose Morrow and Reed had five and Tyasia Reed and Izarria Alexander had four. It was 40-10 at the half. 

In the second half, all 10 players saw action for Walters State as each player got good experience heading forward. With a shorter bench, any experience each player can get is beneficial in the long run. 

"Depth comes with experience and in a type of game like this, it was good to get girls out there and get some experience," Coleman said. "We have to make sure that we get good experience too when they're out on the floor and that they learn." 

Up Next: 

Walters State will be back in action next Friday when they travel to Pensacola, FL to take on Eastern Florida State College and St. Petersburg College.

For the Lady Senators, it will be a good time to get out of conference play and continue to get better against elite competition.

"We're just going to keep working on the same thing," Coleman said. "We're going to work on defending and making shots. Early in the season, that's the biggest key is getting that chemistry together and getting players comfortable shooting the basketball."