Southwest women's basketball traveled to Utica on Thursday to take on Hinds Community College, and the matchup ended with the Lady Bears (5-9,1-0) picking up a 71-58 road win.
The scoring started slow, with a first quarter tally of only 7-6 in favor of the Lady Bulldogs.
Southwest picked it up in the second, outscoring Hinds 15-9 and taking a lead of 21-16 into the half.
The team never looked back, as it caught fire and continued to build on the lead.
The Lady Bears totaled 28 points in the third, with a clutch three late in the quarter from Gracie Miller highlighting the run. The lead began to become insurmountable for the Lady Bulldogs, as they trailed 49-37.
Keeping their foot on the gas, the Lady Bears recorded another 22 points in the fourth quarter to pick up a 71-58 win in the first conference game of the season.
Mady Smith led the team in scoring with 20 points. Mercedes Dorsey and Gracie Miller were on her heels with 18 and 17 points respectively.
Southwest as a whole shot 17/28 from the free throw line.
"I am very proud of our focus to the game plan tonight," head coach Brent Harris said. "We had some people have big nights offensively because their teammates were willing passers."
Meanwhile, the men's team took down Hinds 82-72 for a convincing win in its road opener.
The first half started out as a back-and-forth contest with each team going score-for-score. At the buzzer, the half time score was 36-35 with Hinds in the lead.
The Bears opened up the second half with a quick score to take the lead in what would continue to be a back-and-forth contest.
Southwest and Hinds would take turns stealing the advantage all the way until about 7:00 left on the clock, when the Bears finally started to pull away.
Maintaining a roughly ten-point lead for the remainder of the game, the Bears would take down the Bulldogs 82-72 to start off 1-0 in the conference.
Courterius Scott spearheaded the scoring for the Bears, putting up a whopping 35 points including five three-pointers and 10 free throws made on 14 attempts.
"Court is just a special player, I'm glad he is on our side… he just made so many big plays when they had a little momentum," head coach Corey Schmidt said. "Made tough shots. Just a tough dude that is a winner."
Leano Rolle and Cy Merrett also had big games with 18 and 17 points respectively to help bring home the win for Southwest.
"It's never easy to win conference games on the road," Schmidt said. "Proud of the guys' toughness and mindset to get it done tonight. Really executed the game plan well and had great focus throughout."
Both teams advance to 1-0 in conference play and look toward their next conference game, as they face Mississippi Gulf Coast on Tuesday in Summit.
