Even though her parents come to every game, Thursday night’s 74-54 win for the Elon University women’s basketball team over Morgan State University was the first game freshman guard Jessica Farmer’s sister had been to. It also happened to be the night she tallied her first career double-double at Elon.
“My family was here so it was awesome they got to come from Asheville and see the game,” Farmer said. “I guess the big one was my sister though. She came to this game.”
After a very sluggish first half, Farmer exploded in the second half. All 10 of her points came in the second half, and she finished with 10 rebounds as well as four steals.
“I was trying my best but my shot wasn’t falling and I was getting a little down,” she said. “So I was trying to get myself in the rhythm of the game with rebounds and that just seemed to work.”
Farmer called her slow start a characteristic of the team as a whole, as the Phoenix let the Lady Bears hang around in the first half, taking just a four-point lead into halftime at 26-22.
“We’re pretty consistently a second half team, which isn’t how it should be,” Farmer said. “We should be a 40-minute team and that’s just something we have to work on all together.”
Her coach agreed that the sluggish starts are holding the Phoenix back.
“We often times have gotten off to a slow start and we just have to find a way to generate energy from the jump ball,” Elon head coach Charlotte Smith said. “If we find a way to put together two halves, we are going to be a very dangerous team.”
Leading by four at the break, both Farmer and senior forward Kelsey Evans felt it should have been more, but the slow start prevented that from happening.
“We were struggling to get stops in the first half,” Evans said. “At halftime, we knew we had to come out with a lot of energy and defensive energy to help create offense. The way we picked up our defense in the second half led to our offense.”
Out of the break, the newfound energy was evident, as the Phoenix scored 12 quick points before the first media timeout. Morgan State also scored 12 quick points, but out of the timeout, their offensive prowess tapered off and the Phoenix started to extend the lead.
“We were very spastic in the first half and just not calm and relaxed,” Smith said. “We finally did a better job of slowing down and being poised in the second half.”
After the Lady Bears hung around for half of the second half, the Phoenix put the clamps down defensively.
The closest Morgan State got in the second half was three points at 48-45. From the 8:54 mark down to less than a minute to go in the game, the Phoenix went on a 26-4 run which included an 20-0 run to really put the game out of reach late.
“I’m really proud of the way we came out in the second half,” Smith said. “We did a great job of executing and getting the ball inside and making the extra pass and that created a lot of easy scoring opportunities for us and open shots.”
Coming off her homecoming game in Raleigh against North Carolina State University that saw her on the bench for half of the game in foul trouble, Evans rebounded with 19 points and nine rebounds of her own. Senior guard Ali Ford and sophomore guard Zora Stephenson each had 14 points while Ford tied her career-high with eight assists. It’s the second time this season Ford had eight assists in a game.
Morgan State’s five starters scored all but three of the Lady Bears’ points. They were led by senior guard Bianca Jarrett, who finished with 15 points and five steals. Sophomore guard Tracey Carrington tallied 13 points.
The Phoenix was spurred on by its hot shooting. Smith was happy about the 51.7 percent shooting from the field, and hopes it will continue.
"We shot the ball really well tonight so I’m extremely proud about that," Smith said. "We got a contribution from everybody and it just felt like we played a complete game in the second half"