Brevard, N.C.----Wingate University senior guard Shelby Tricoli (Waynesville, N.C.) tallied a season-high 20 points to lead all scorers in a dominant 84-54 Bulldog victory over Brevard College in South Atlantic Conference women's basketball action from Boshamer Gymnasium Saturday evening. Four total Bulldogs reached double figures in the contest, while WU shot 53.1 percent from the floor as a team.
 
Wingate improves to 19-4 overall and 15-3 in the SAC. Brevard is now 6-16 overall and 2-16 in league play. The Bulldogs are back in action Wednesday night for a conference encounter versus Coker from Cuddy Arena. Tip-off is slated for a 6 p.m. start with the contest airing live on ESPN3. Brevard travels to Anderson to face the Trojans on the same night and time.
 
"Brevard is always a difficult place to play, so to get a win is big," Wingate head women's basketball coach Ann Hancock says. "We started slowly, but we did a better job of attacking the basket in the second half. This can be seen in the number of free throw attempts we took after halftime. They have players who can shoot out very quickly and from anywhere in the gym, so they always have the ability to come back and put up points."
 
Tricoli finished seven-of-10 shooting (70 percent) and a near perfect four-of-five (80 percent) from beyond the arc. The Tuscola High School graduate has 993 career points entering the Wednesday match-up versus the Coker Cobras.
 
WU sophomore forward/guard Danasia Witherspoon (Hickory, N.C.) posted 17 points and went six-of-11 from the field (54 percent). Sophomore guard Caroline Averette (Midlothian, Va.) added 13 points and finished five-of-seven shooting in the contest (71 percent). The SAC's leading three-point shooter went two-of-three from beyond the arc (66.7 percent). Bulldog junior center Marta Miscenko (Riga, Latvia) contributed 10 markers and 11 rebounds for her 13th double-double of the season.
 
The Bulldogs were victorious in every major statistical category, outrebounding Brevard 40-15 in convincing fashion. The 'Dogs also converted 26 points off 19 Tornado turnovers and turned 16 offensive rebounds into eight second-chance buckets. The WU bench outscored the Tornado substitutes by a dominant margin of 27-9.
 
"Rebounding was something we emphasized and we did start as we wanted as far as limiting them to one shot," Hancock says. "Our scoring was balanced…it was nice for Shelby to have a good night from behind the three-point line."
 
Brevard sophomore guard AnnaLee Bollinger (Hickory, N.C.) led the hosts' scoring efforts with 18 points and finished four-of-nine (44 percent) from downtown. Senior forward Lynsey Crisp (Robbinsville, N.C.) and senior guard Madison Lenox (Raleigh, N.C.) added 12 points each. Junior forward Whitney DeMoss (Candler, N.C.) contributed nine points on 50 percent shooting (four-of-eight).
 
Wingate began the contest on a 13-0 run from the opening tip and never looked back. A Tricoli lay-up helped the Bulldogs equal their largest lead of the first quarter at 13 points (15-2) with Brevard getting no closer than nine points. The 'Dogs led by a score of 21-11 at the break between quarters.
 
Brevard would cut the deficit down to six points on a Bollinger two-point jumper to make it a 23-17 game with 6:49 left in the second quarter. A basket from Witherspoon extended the Bulldog advantage out to 12 points (31-19) for the largest margin of the stanza. Bollinger nailed a three-pointer with 10 seconds remaining in the first half to make it a 35-27 Wingate lead at the halftime intermission.
 
Wingate started the second half on a scorching 16-2 run to give the Bulldogs a commanding 22-point advantage (51-29) with 4:12 on the third-quarter clock. Brevard would not get closer than 19 points for the remainder of the frame and trailed 59-35 entering the final quarter of play.
 
Another Witherspoon lay-up allowed the Bulldogs to hit the 30-point lead mark at 66-36 with 7:37 to play in the fourth frame. Wingate held the 30-plus point advantage for the rest of the game and held on for the statement 30-point victory.
 
The Bulldogs shot above 50 percent as a team for only the second time in the 2016-17 campaign, finishing 34-of-64 from the field (53 percent). Wingate also was six-of-10 (60 percent) from three-point range. Brevard was 21-of-49 shooting (42.9 percent) and seven-of-15 from beyond the arc (46.7 percent).
 
(Wingate University athletic media relations/sports network student assistant Jackson Kaplan contributed this article. A sophomore from Raleigh, Kaplan is a Communication Studies major at Wingate.)