LAKELAND – The Florida Southern women's basketball team earned its third consecutive home victory with a 61-47 win over Young Harris at Jenkins Field House on Saturday afternoon.

It was a strong defensive effort for the Moccasins (5-2), who limited the Mountain Lions (3-4) to only a dozen field goals and a 29.3 shooting percentage (12-for-41). The Mocs also recorded a season-high 18 steals, led by a second straight five-steal performance from sophomore forward Gianna Vastola (Sarasota, Fla.) and a career-high four from sophomore guard Morgan Siebka (Slippery Rock, Pa.)

"I thought we did really well defensively," said head coach Betsy Harris. "We held them to 47 points. I thought we did well, definitely on our post defense. Overall, I felt like we did a very good defensive job."

While they had trouble scoring from the field, 22 of the Mountain Lions' 47 points came from the free-throw line. Young Harris was 22-for-29 (75.9 percent) from the charity stripe. Senior forward Shereese Williams, who came in as the team's leading scorer with 8.5 points per game, scored seven of her 11 points off of free throws.

"Most of their points came from the free-throw line," Harris said. "The whistle was blowing a lot. We're just going to have to do a better job I guess at putting our hands up and getting better positioning."

No single player dominated the scoring on the offensive end for the Mocs. Ten different players scored at least two points. Vastola netted a team-high 10 points, followed by nine-point efforts from Mariah Harris and Sydni Payne. Christin Strawbridge (Lakeland, Fla.) and Shaquita Snow each scored seven.

"I would rather see the scoring spread out just because, if you do have a dominate scorer, then it is easy to guard them," Harris said. "When you have several people who can score the ball, it makes it a lot harder to defend a team."

FSC only trailed for 14 seconds after Young Harris senior center Peyton Robertson scored the opening basket. Snow (Orange Park, Fla.) drew the game to its only tie at 2-2 with a layup at 18:49. She later gave the Mocs their first double-digit lead, 21-11, by completing an and-one play with 8:28 left before halftime.

Payne (Conyers, Ga.) scored six of FSC's last 12 points of the half and carried a team-high eight into the locker room. Her 3-pointer made it 31-14 with 2:36 left before the break, tied for the team's largest lead in the first half. FSC led 35-21 at the break.

Mariah Harris scored all nine of her points in the last eight minutes of the second half. She was 4-for-4 from the field with all of her shots coming from within the paint. The 6-0 forward from Gainesville, Fla. allowed the Mocs to regain a 17-point advantage, 53-36, on a layup with a little over six minutes left in regulation.

Vastola followed with a layup of her own to give the Mocs their largest lead of the game, 55-36.

Although the first-year head coach recognized her team, which went 7-20 a year ago, is moving in the right direction, Harris is concerned about the immediate future of the point guard position. Snow, who finished with a game-high seven assists, left the game in the second half after suffering an undisclosed leg injury and backup Jensen Blassage, a freshman from Rockford, Ill., was scratched from the lineup with a concussion.

"We're on the right track, but my biggest concern right now is (Snow), not only as a person, but I know how well she gets this team going," Harris said. "We're really hoping she's going to be okay."

The Mocs continue their current six-game homestand with a pair of games in the FSC/Terrace Hotel Classic. They host Eastern New Mexico on Thursday, Dec. 18 at 2 p.m., followed by a 3 p.m. matchup with Molloy (N.Y.) on Friday, Dec. 19.