CHARLESTON, S.C - Charleston Southern women's basketball won only their ninth game in program history against cross-town rival College of Charleston at a score of 86-74. Leading all scorers was senior guard Kelsey Wasmer who had a season high 21 points on 7-of-12 shooting from the field. Wasmer also shot a peerless five for five from the charity stripe. The win improves the Bucs' record to 6-7 overall as they now turn their attention to Big South Conference play that begins in earnest next week. The loss drops the Cougars of College of Charleston to 4-8 (1-2, SoCon).

Three of Charleston Southern's victories over the Cougars have come during Head Coach Julie Goodenough's tenure at CSU, the most recent being a victory coming in the 2007-08 season.

Five minutes into tonight's contest the Bucs found themselves trailing the College of Charleston by seven points. The Bucs would respond and proceeded to go on a 20-3 run from which they would never look back and never surrender the lead.

With the deficit at 13, long time head coach Nancy Wilson tried to hasten the pace of play by extending their defense to a full court press. The Cougars hit threes on consecutive trips and brought the lead back down to four points with five minutes to go in the first.

The Buccaneers led by 11 points going into half after inducing 11 turnovers from the Cougars of College of Charleston with their pressure on defense.

The College of Charleston would go on a quick six-zero run to open the second half and cut the lead to five in the first 1:24.

The Bucs would again respond. Charleston Southern would extend their lead to as high as 13 points, but could not quite put the game out of reach.

CSU's lead would hover around ten points throughout the remainder of the second half, but the Cougars couldn't muster another run to tighten up the game.

Throughout this afternoon's game it was apparent that the Cougars were making a concerted effort to keep the Bucs' leading scorer Katie Tull from beating them. Tull rarely had an open look and was held to a season low five points on 2-of-9 shooting. However, the increased focus on Tull created openings for her team mates.

Charleston Southern had four players who would score in double figures on the night. Kelsey Wasmer led all scorers with 21 points and also pulled down seven boards. Lakeitha Alston had 18 points and six boards, and Kiki Rutledge had a season high 16 points for the Buccaneers. In only the second start of her career Buccaneer freshman Anicia Dotson contributed 10 points and four rebounds toward the cause.

Leading the Cougars in scoring was Janae Smith who had 18 points in the losing effort.

Charleston Southern will begin Big South conference play this coming week with three games on the road. That road trip begins with the Gardner-Webb runnin' bulldogs on Monday Jan., 3 at 7 p.m.

Game Highlights