Posted: Feb 19, 2020
FORT MYERS, Fla.- The #9 Florida SouthWestern State Women's Basketball team sent their sophomores out in style Wednesday night in Suncoast Credit Union Arena, hitting the century mark for the fifth time this season, in a 100-33 win over visiting Impact Academy in the Bucs final home game of 2020.
It was a competitive game early on as FSW and Impact were deadlocked at 8 midway through the first quarter. A quick 6-0 run for the Bucs, led by a pair of Simone Lett finishes in the paint gave FSW a 14-8 lead and they parlayed that into a 25-10 lead after one quarter of action as they outscored Impact 17-2 in the final 5:06 of the period.
The Bucs started to pour it on as the second quarter got underway, taking their first 20 point lead of the game as Shekinah Guthrie connected on a 12 footer midway through the period. Another Guthrie bucket made it 38-16 with 2:22 to go and FSW held Impact without a field goal for the rest of the half, outscoring them 10-1 to open up a 48-17 lead after 20 minutes of play.
After a relatively quiet first half, Za'Nautica Downs came out in the second on fire. Playing in her final home game as a Buc, Downs scored 13 points in the first 4:30 of the third, blowing the FSW lead open to 65-22 with 5:30 to go in the period. Impact had no answer for the multifaceted FSW attack as a late steal and score from Sheslanie Laureano stretched the Bucs advantage to 77-24 after three quarters of action.
It was more of the same as the fourth quarter began as Nairimar Vargas-Reyes picked up a steal and scored early in the period and then again moments later to give her a double figure scoring effort with her mother in the stands from Puerto Rico. There was little drama left as the final minutes of the game ticked down, but the Bucs did give the fans one last thing to cheer about as they clipped the century mark with under a minute to go when Ta'Shonna Wright-Gaskins nailed a jumper to close out a 100-33 win.
The Bucs shot 52% in the win while holding Impact to just 25% shooting and forcing 38 Impact turnovers on the night. Downs led the Bucs with 23 points on 8-12 shooting in 18 minutes of action while Lett added 17 and Wright-Gaskins, Vargas-Reyes, and Laureano each had 13.
The win is the 12th straight for FSW who improves to 24-5 on the year.
The Bucs will hit the road for their final regular season game of 2020 on Saturday when they travel to Melbourne to take on #22 Eastern Florida State in a 2 PM tip from Titan Field House.