By Jay King
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – The No. 15 Lady Vols get a huge top-20 victory over their archrival Alabama Crimson Tide on Thursday night, 88-80 at the Food City Center. This is their third straight win and their fourth straight home win as they are in the home stretch in the regular season.
The scoring leader for the Lady Vols in the second straight game was Jewel Spear, as she has back-to-back 20+ point games, and has had five straight games in double figures. Other Lady Vols in double-figures this game were Talaysia Cooper, and Zee Spearman with 16, and 13 points respectively. Leading the teams in rebounds was Spearman with nine, and leading the team in assists were both Cooper and Smara Spencer with four.
Alabama played hard in this game, as it took until 5:21 in the second quarter for the Lady Vols to take the lead, but after that they never relinquished it. They ended the first half on a 10-0 run and started the third quarter on an 11-0 run. Tennessee Head Coach Kim Caldwell said this about those runs, “It was huge because we didn’t get off to a very good start, and we had that lapse there in the fourth quarter, so we needed those runs.”
While they never trailed after that, The Tide did go on a 14-4 run in the middle of the fourth quarter. Caldwell also said this about Bama’s run late “They were scoring down the stretch, which I think has been our problem in our close games.”
The Lady Vols’ next game is this Sunday, February 22nd as they travel to Gainesville to face off against the Florida Gators, and their next home game is the season finale on Sunday, March 2nd as they face off against the Georgia Bulldogs.