Box Score
LAKELAND â€" When Florida Southern held Florida Tech to 18 percent shooting and 35 points back in December, it was hard to imagine the Moccasins doing better than that any time soon. Imagine no longer. It didn’t take long at all. Florida Southern held Lynn to just 17 percent shooting from the floor, forced 25 turnovers and gave up its fewest points in 15 years in a 53-30 win over the Knights.
The Moccasins (14-3, 6-2 SSC) scored the first seven points of the game before the Knights (9-8, 4-3) scored on back-to-back shots inside of 16 minutes. From there it got ugly, as Lynn went more than nine minutes without scoring, missed 16 consecutive shots, and at one point was just 2-for-23. The Mocs may have scored only nine points themselves during that same stretch, but it was enough to give them a fairly comfortable lead for the rest of the night.
By halftime, the Mocs led 27-12 behind eight points from Sofie Lundberg. Six other Moccasins had scored between two points and four points, but the Knights had just three players in the scoring column as they finished the first half 5-for-30 from the floor.
The Knights were 5-for-28 in the second half, and started 1-for-13. A field goal and free throw by Charla Nelson-James in the opening minute cut the gap to 12, but that was as close as the score got. She was the only Lynn player in double figures, scoring 10 points and pulling down a game-high 17 rebounds. The Knights had 50 rebounds as a team, including 28 on the offensive end.
Florida Southern got 15 points from Michaela Hawley, and 10 points from Lundberg. Morgan Lamberg added nine points and nine rebounds.
It was a relatively quiet night for Hawley, the leading scorer in the Sunshine State Conference and seventh leading scorer in the nation with a 21.4 average. The Mocs needed her to score just four points in the first half, but she scored nine of their first 11 points in the second as they built a 38-18 lead with 11 minutes to play. The senior forward also had two rebounds, two assists and two steals while going 5-for-7 from the floor and 5-for-7 from the line.
Lundberg picked up the offense in the first half when she used a pair of 3-pointers in the final five minutes to stake the Mocs to their 15-point halftime lead.
Megan Dzikas ended up with eight points and three assists, and along with Lundberg had two 3-pointers in the game.
Defensively, Saturday night’s game was the third time in conference play this year the Mocs allowed less than 50 points, and it was the fourth time overall they held an opponent to less than 30 percent shooting. Only two free throws by Lynn with 54 seconds to play prevented the Mocs from surrendering less than 30 points for the first time since the 1996-97 season. That year, on December 9, the Moccasins routed American University of Puerto Rico, 102-27. It hasn’t happened for the Mocs in conference play since a 77-29 win at Barry in 1989.
The win by Florida Southern, coupled with Rollins' loss to Florida Tech on Saturday also got the Moccasins within a half game of first place in the SSC standings. They'll be off from conference play in their next game Wednesday night when they host Palm Beach Atlantic at 5:30 p.m.
