By Alex Boggis, UT Martin Assistant Sports Information Director
MOREHEAD, Ky. – The freshmen tandem of Anaya Brown and Sharnecce Currie-Jelks posted big afternoons as the University of Tennessee at Martin women’s basketball team wrapped up the regular season portion of the 2023-23 schedule with a 74-60 road victory at Ohio Valley Conference foe Morehead State.
The Skyhawks finish the regular season with a 13-16 overall mark while going 9-9 in league play. With the victory, UT Martin clinched its 13th consecutive season in which the program has finished OVC action with at least a .500 winning percentage. The Skyhawks will now enter next week’s OVC Basketball Championship as the No. 5 seed with a rematch against No. 8 seed Morehead State on the docket for Wednesday afternoon.
UT Martin used a dominating first half to propel the squad to a road victory. The Skyhawks took a 10-point lead into the second quarter while building their lead out to as large as 26 points early in the third period. The squad shot 50 percent from the floor while dominating the paint where they scored 44 points.
The freshmen duo of Brown and Currie-Jelks played a big role in the team’s victory as they combined to outscore the Eagles in the first half before finishing the game with 39 combined points. Brown had a big game in her home state, as the Lexington, Ky. native scored a career-high 21 points while also adding nine rebounds to just miss out on a double-double. Currie-Jelks also maintained her hot stretch by tallying 18 points and eight rebounds in the win.
In addition to the strong play by the newcomers, graduate guard Paige Pipkin also reached double figures for the sixth straight game with 11 points while sophomore Shae Littleford added 10 points off the bench.
While UT Martin held a sizable lead, Morehead State (10-19, 6-12 OVC) fought back in the second half, trimming the margin to as close as nine points with 6:53 to play in the contest. After the deficit was cut to single digits, the Skyhawks pushed the margin back out to 16 points late in the fourth before coming away with the 14-point victory.
“I thought in the third quarter, we decided it was over,” UT Martin head coach Kevin McMillan said. “That’s really disheartening after how well we played in the first half. I talk to them all the time about how you can’t give a team life and now we have to come back and play them again in the first round of the tournament. It’s frustrating that we can be as good as we were, but also as bad as we were in stretches. We will have to come out ready to play on Wednesday.”
Morehead State had four players score in double figures in the matchup with Veronica Charles leading the squad with 18 points and nine rebounds. Sandra Lin ranked second on the team with 15 points while Valentina Saric (11) and Hallie Rhodes (10) also reached double-digits.
The two squads will meet again in the first round of the OVC Basketball Championship next week in Evansville, Ind. The contest which will feature the No. 5 and No. 8 seeds will be played on Wednesday, March 1 at 1 p.m.
Graphic courtesy of UT Martin Sports Information