Thornton and Grant lead Lady Blazers to Region 24 win at Southwestern Illinois

BELLEVILLE, Ill. – The VU Lady Trailblazers picked up their second Region 24 win Saturday afternoon, winning 90-54 at Southwestern Illinois College.

Vincennes found themselves in a battle early with the two teams even at 10-all midway through the first quarter.

The Lady Trailblazers closed out the opening quarter on an 11-2 scoring run to take a 21-12 lead after the first 10 minutes of play.

VU continued to put the pressure on the Lady Blue Storm, continuing the scoring run to an 18-2 run before SWIC was able to find a basket.

The Lady Blazers held tough defensively in the second quarter, only allowing Southwestern Illinois to score six points in the quarter to head into halftime with a commanding 46-18 lead.

Southwestern Illinois attempted to mount a comeback early in the second half, opening the third quarter with a 16-6 run to cut the deficit down to 18 points.

Vincennes was able to recover and close out the third quarter on an 11-3 run of their own to take a 63-37 lead into the fourth quarter.

The Lady Blazers put the game away early in the fourth quarter, growing their lead to 37 points midway through the period before finishing off the game and getting the 90-54 win over the host Blue Storm.

"We're used to playing on the road, we've played some really good teams on the road this year. Southwestern's got a good basketball team," VU Hall of Fame head coach Harry Meeks said. "They are quite a bit better than they have been in the past and I was very impressed with some of their young players."

"I'm really excited about our girls," Meeks added. "We're playing a lot of freshmen a lot of big minutes. I thought we did a pretty good job both offensively and defensively. I was really pleased with how the girls shot the ball today. I'm pleased with how we rebounded the ball and just the way we competed overall. We had a couple of flat spots but that was maybe two times at a minimum. We played hard, our girls were excited to play and they really liked winning."

The Lady Blazers were led offensively by freshman Day'Lynn Thornton (Lafayette, Ind.) who finished with 18 points off the bench for the Blue and Gold. Thornton also led VU with three steals on the game.

Sophomore Laila Grant (Derwood, Md.) ended her day with 17 points, 15 of which coming in the first half, while also adding three rebounds and two assists.

Sophomore Nina Blade finished the game with 14 points, 10 of which came in the first half, along with five rebounds.

Freshmen Cherrelle Newsom (Indianapolis, Ind.) and Kylee Shelton (Bloomfield, Ind.) each finished with 10 points, with Newsom adding a team-high eight assists on the night.

Freshman Trinitee Harris (Elkhart, Ind.) continued to be an all-around contributor for the Blazers with nine points, seven assists and five rebounds for the game.

"Day'Lynn has been coming off the bench for us and she is that spark plug that we need," Meeks said. "She lights a fire when she comes into the game and plays extremely hard both on offense and defense. She's making progress, she comes in the gym and shoots any chance she gets. Her shooting has gotten better and better, so I'm not surprised that she's making three's for us. She knows when to shoot it and she knows when to pass it. She's done an outstanding job for us."

"Laila did a really good job today," Meeks added. "I thought she had a couple of performances lately that were not up to her standard and today she played really well and I think she's got it turned around now."

"The rest of the team played really well. I thought Cherrelle did a really good job handling the ball and pushing the ball up the floor for us."

Vincennes will travel to Ullin, Ill. to begin next week when VU takes on Shawnee Community College Wednesday, Dec. 8. Tip-off time is set for 6:30 p.m. eastern.

"Against Shawnee, we need to win this game," Meeks said. "Shawnee the last couple of years has had teams that can really push you to the limit. I know last year we had some trouble with them and I don't see that changing a whole lot. I expect they will play very hard against us, especially with us playing down there."

"I'm sure by Wednesday we will have a good idea of how they play and what they do," Meeks added. "We're looking forward to our trip going down there and seeing how well we can play. I'm more worried about how my team plays more than anything and if my team plays well, we should never be out of the basketball game. We want to be consistent and play hard. We want to shoot well and do all the facets of the basketball game, passing, running the floor, all the things that lead to having an outstanding team."

VINCENNES BOX SCORE

VINCENNES (90): Trinitee Harris 3-10 2-2 9, Cherrelle Newsom 3-7 2-2 10, Nina Blade 7-10 0-0 14, Macy Michels 0-3 0-0 0, Laila Grant 5-13 4-4 17, Chanice Willis 1-1 0-0 2, Day'Lynn Thornton 7-9 0-0 18, Candela Lascorz 3-5 0-0 6, Elena Aznar 2-5 0-0 4, Guadalupe Lopez 0-2 0-0 0, Kylee Shelton 4-8 0-1 10, Cristina Requejo 0-0 0-0 0, Team 35-73 8-9 90.

Vincennes (7-4, 2-0) – 21  25  17  27 – 90

Southwestern Illinois – 12  6  19  17 – 54

Three-point goals: VU 12 (Thornton 4, Grant 3, Newsom 2, Shelton 2, Harris). Rebounds: VU 42 (Lascorz 8). Assists: VU 24 (Newsom 8). Steals: VU 14 (Thornton 3). Blocked shots: VU 2 (Michels, Lascorz). Turnovers: VU 14. Personal Fouls: VU 13. Fouled out: None.