Box Score LAKELAND - All season, Florida Southern Head Coach Betsy Harris has been telling her players to work hard to win every quarter. Tonight, the players heard their coach and eclipsed Lynn in each of the four quarters en route to a 79-53 win over Lynn in Sunshine State Conference action here at Jenkins Field House.
Florida Southern, ranked 25th in the D2SIDA Media Poll, won the first quarter, 20-16; the second 21-13; the third, 18-15; and finally, the fourth, 20-9.
Bailey Florin set the Moccasin plan into action with a pair of three-pointers to open the game to give the Mocs the lead that they would not relinquish. The Moccasins (16-2 overall, and 7-2 in the SSC), jumped ahead 16-6 at the 3:02 mark on a pair of free throws by Danielle Thomas. Lynn (2-15, 0-9 SSC) then put together a 10-2 run to pull within two, 18-16m with 22 seconds left in the period.
Florida Southern responded with an 11-4 run in the opening minutes of the second period behind four points by Mariah Harris to push the lead out to 11 points, 31-20 on a layup by Jensen Blassage. The Knights would not pull any closer than nine points while the Mocs increased their lead to 16 points, 41-25, with 1:17 left in the half and took a 41-29 lead at intermission. Harris would finish the period with 13 points.
"I thought the first half was kind of boring," said Coach Harris. "We talked about it at halftime. Let's make it more exciting in the second half, especially for the fans."
Camille Giardina led FSC in the third, scoring half of the team's 18 points in the period. The fourth period was all Moccasins with Florida Southern eventually enjoying a 30-point lead, 79-49, with just over a minute to go.
For the game, Harris led all scorers with 17 points and was perfect on five free throw shots. Gianna Vastola added 13 points for Florida Southern while Giardina and Florin added 12 and 11 points, respectively. Florin led the Moccasins with a season-high five assists while Blassage dished out four.
Coach Harris played her entire bench in the game with 11 of the 12 getting on the board.
"I was glad we got to to be able to get everyone in the game." said Harris. "They're great practice players and deserve to get some playing time."
Maddie Herr was the only Lynn player in double figures with 13 points.
Florida Southern got six rebounds from Anja Fuchs-Robetin to power the Mocs to a 41-35 advantage on the boards. The Moccasins shot 53 percent from the field in the game, including a 60 percent effort in the final period. FSC's defense limited Lynn to just 31 percent from the field.
The Moccasins will play next at Barry on Wednesday at 5:30 pm.
