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Home > SECWB News & More! > SEC Teams > Vanderbilt > Vanderbilt Notches First Road Win, Beats Clemson
Vanderbilt Notches First Road Win, Beats Clemson
by LeAnne Harrington, SECWB.com
Posted: November 20th, 2007 @ 11:46pm
Source: View Box Score
The Vanderbilt Commodores, coming off their first loss of the season at Indiana State, hit the road again, but with much better results this time out: they beat the Clemson Tigers 74-56 to notch their first road win of the young 2007-2008 season. The Commodores were led by senior center Liz Sherwood’s double-double: she posted 22 points on 10-of-11 shooting from the field and pulled down 12 rebounds. Sherwood entered the game shooting an astonishing 81.8% from the field, and tonight’s game just added to that stat. Vanderbilt’s coach Melanie Balcomb noted: "She's always been this accurate. It's just a matter of how many shots she gets. It's her senior year and she's getting more confident and assertive." The only kink in Sherwood’s armor was in free throw shooting, where she connected on only 2-of-8 from the line. However, the rest of the Commodores hit 13 of 16 from the charity stripe, which was a vast improvement over last week’s abysmal 3-of-14 against ISU. Maybe some extra time at the line has been spent by the ‘Dores in practice? Just wondering…
This game started out like it was going to be a Vandy romp, with the Commodores leading 20-10 midway through the first half. But the Tigers came roaring back, going on a 20-4 run to take a 30-24 lead with a little over 2 minutes remaining in the first half. Despite committing 17 first-half turnovers, the Commodores went on a mini-run of their own, and the game was knotted at 32 at the half. Coach Balcomb and her staff must have given the Commodores an earful at halftime, because Vandy came out in the second half and took care of the ball and the game, outscoring Clemson 42-24 over the final 20 minutes. “In the first half, we hesitated like crazy and that led to our turnovers," Balcomb said. "We played not to lose rather than to win. We made a couple of adjustments at halftime that they listened to." Indeed, Vandy had allowed Clemson to dictate the pace of the game early on, but after the break, they came back out and settled into their own game. Sophomore Lauren Lueders replaced Jessica Mooney in the starting lineup for Vanderbilt, and both players responded well to the change. Lueders finished the game with 7 points and 8 rebounds, and Mooney, who had been less than spectacular in Vandy’s first 3 games, put up 10 points in only 12 minutes of action.
Clemson was led by D’Lesha Lloyd, who came off the bench to score 17 despite a shoulder injury, and Sthefany Thomas, the only other double figure scorer with 10. Clemson’s record falls to 2-3, while Vanderbilt improves to 3-1.
Vanderbilt returns home for the Thanksgiving holiday, where they will host Belmont in their own Thanksgiving Tournament on Friday afternoon, Nov. 23 in Memorial Gym. The game will be played at 2pm CST, with Iowa State facing Michigan in the game immediately following the VU-Belmont contest. The winners of these two matchups will meet in the championship game on Sunday afternoon, Nov. 25, at approximately 2:30 pm CST, following the consolation game between Friday’s losing teams.
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