MEMPHIS-The Christian Brothers University Lady Bucs opened the game on a 22-8 run and never trailed Saturday in a 59-52 win over Alabama Huntsville.

HOW IT HAPPENED:
• CBU (9-12, 8-7 GSC) dominated the first quarter, building a 15-5 lead on an Emily Reeves (Somerville, Tenn./Fayette Academy) layup with 4:33 remaining in the quarter.
• A Kenzie Jones (Park Hills, Mo./Central HS) three-point play opened the second-quarter scoring as it gave the Lady Bucs a 22-8 lead that would later grow to as many as 15 points on a Brynne Lytle (Jackson, Tenn./Trinity Christian Academy) triple that put them in front 27-12 with 4:10 remaining in the quarter.
• The Chargers (11-11, 5-10) closed the first half on a 5-0 run to trim the deficit to 27-17 on a pair of Heidi Miller free throws with 2:35 remaining in the half. An 11-2 run in the third quarter drew them within 34-32 on an Allie Bolton jumper with 2:00 remaining in the quarter, ad they came within a point later when a Baylee Johnson triple cut the CBU advantage to 38-37 with 57 seconds remaining in the quarter.
• Courtney Banks (Memphis, Tenn./White Station HS) sank a triple as the third quarter expired to restore the Lady Bucs' lead to four points. A 10-3 CBU run capped by another Banks triple ave them a 53-43 lead with 3:47 remaining.
• UAH cut the Lady Bucs' lead to three points twice in the final minutes, first on two Chandler Elder free throws with 1:34 remaining and later on an Elder layup with 16 seconds remaining.
• Banks and Jones made two free throws each in the final 13 seconds to salt away the victory.

KEY STATS:
• Jones scored a career-high 24 points with six rebounds, five assists and three steals in 33 minutes.
• Banks scored a season-best 21 in 39 minutes.
• Emily Reeves (Somerville, Tenn./Fayette Academy) grabbed a team-high seven rebounds in 29 minutes.
• Lytle tied her career-high with four steals in 30 minutes.
• The Lady Bucs shot 38.2 percent (21-of-55) for the game, including 25.0 percent (6-of-24) from three-point range. UAH finished 32.7 percent (17-of-52) overall, including 20 percent (4-of-20) from beyond the arc.
• The Chargers out-rebounded CBU 39-31, including a 12-7 edge in offensive boards, but they committed 19 turnovers to the Lady Bucs' 17.

HEAD COACH SARAH CONDRA'S THOUGHTS:
"This was a big win and we knew that coming in. It was no secret we needed to get this one, especially after our performance on Thursday.  Dr. Smarrelli summed up that game perfectly when he said 'Sometimes you just stink.' I told our kids we just needed to not stink two nights in a row and we didn't. I knew they'd respond well, they have every game. Each time they've been faced with a bit of adversity, we've responded to it well. I was really proud of the effort and focus today and the energy being able to pull out the close one."

On playing aggressive and small tonight:
"We went with a smaller lineup, I thought that was probably the best way to go with this game with them being really guard oriented. I thought our first quarter was tremendous. We were running our offense, getting stops, and our defense was a big reason the offense was so strong. We were building a wall around drivers and they were turning the ball over or not getting good shots. Then we were able to get out and run. Then they switched to the zone, which was a good move on their part since it caused us to stall a bit."

On Kenzie Jones:
"Kenzie had a great game and it's just one of those games that I hope builds her confidence.  I told her after the game, that this is what I know you've been capable of the whole time. Her and Courtney played really well off of each other today and that was big for us."

On the defense:
"I thought we did a tremendous job. I would have liked to cut off a few more of those baseline drives, but I thought we did a great job of building a wall around them. They made an adjustment though and started posing up more against our smaller guards and started getting some offensive rebounds, and that hurt us, but overall I thought we played a really good defensive game."

On Emily Reeves' performance:
"She's tough as nails. She goes in willing to do whatever you ask her to do. There's a lot of things that our players did that aren't going to show up in the stat sheet. Like Brynne, didn't have a great game offensively tonight, but this is two games in a row where she's guarding their best player and holding them way under their average. Tonight she was guarding a girl that gets twenty points a game and tonight she only got 10. She did a tremendous job defensively."

JUNIOR GUARD KENZIE JONES' THOUGHTS:
On her story and relationship with Rafaella Angelidou:
"We met at our junior college, that we both transferred from before coming here. From the beginning we were good and friends, but I think towards the end of the year when she would do things like come home with me to do laundry is when my family started to want her to come over and accept her.  Then she went home for the summer and came back and that's when we decided to come to CBU together. Living together for the first year, especially my first year away from home, having her, my best friend, to help me with that definitely made it stronger. Having her there helped me and helped our relationship, as the years go on you stop becoming best friend and start becoming sisters and that's exactly what she is. I mean my brother and sister call her sis."

On the game and playing with Courtney Banks tonight:
That was something that we were focusing on this game. We had talked about it and had some meetings with coach. We said we need to start playing good and good together. Coach said you two get together and feed off each other because that's when I think we're playing our best basketball. So we really focused on that and our chemistry. That was a great strategy by coach, having us focused on playing with each other. Props to coach and then props to Courtney for her efforts tonight. 

On Emily Reeves' effort:
"You know what you're going to get from her every single game. That's hard work. Things can go wrong but she will never give up, she's our fighter. She's a great roll player and knows if she's not scoring then she's going to pick it up on defense and get rebounds and stuff like that. That's a key player that we needed and helped us win the game."

WHAT'S NEXT:
The Lady Bucs hit the road for two games next week, visiting Shorter Thursday night at 4:30 p.m. and Lee Saturday afternoon at 1 p.m. Their next home game is set for Wednesday, Feb. 14, when they host Delta State at 5 p.m.