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Wednesday, July 9, 2025

Rouse has 34, Lancers win overtime thriller

The Longwood women’s basketball team after a losing streak of 15 games were able to earn a 85-79 win over the Gardner-Webb Runnin’ Bulldogs, the teams’ first victory since Nov. 27.

“We have continued to teach and learn and you just want them to feel it, and today they got to feel it,” said head coach Rebecca Tillett.

The Lancers were led by junior forward Dayna Rouse who had a career high 34 points on a dominant 15-of-20 shooting for the game. 

Rouse, who set a then career high of 31 in the teams’ loss at USC Upstate exactly one week ago, also contributed 11 rebounds in the winning effort. 

“We’ve been challenging Dayna to ‘come on get tough you kind kind person’ and today she played tough for the entire time,” said Tillett. 

The Lancers held a 58-44 lead midway through the fourth after a Stephanie Guihon layup, then a comeback ensued as Gardner-Webb slowly chipped away at the Longwood lead and even went ahead 69-67 on a Savannah Plentovich layup with 0.2 seconds left in the contest.

“Coming into the game we had so much respect for Gardner-Webb and their ability to score the basketball, and it was very concerning for us as a staff and a program,” said Tillett. “When we had such a good first half defensively as a group we were like ‘they’re going to be coming for us in this second half and they certainly have the scorers to do it.”

After the basket, and only a small amount of time remaining, senior forward Kristina Antonenko drew a foul on the ensuing inbound pass and went to the free-throw line to attempt to tie the game. She nailed both shots and sent the game into overtime.

In the overtime period, Rouse was able to tally 12 points to push the Lancers across the finish line, with Ciarah Bennett adding three key assists to set up easier opportunities for her teammates. 

Stephanie Guihon also chipped in 17 key points in a 6-of-10 shooting effort that was also a major factor to the Lancers success down the stretch. 

Gardner-Webb was lead in scoring by freshman guard Jhessyka Williams who went 9-of-18 from the floor coupled with nine rebounds. Senior guard Ky’Asia Stanford also added 20 points in the losing effort for the Runnin’ Bulldogs.

The Lancers will look to keep this newfound winning streak alive as they take on High Point on this Tuesday in Willett Hall with a 7 p.m. start.

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