University of Mount Olive head women's basketball coach Wendy Lee earned her 200th career victory as the Trojans defeated Converse 64-41 in Conference Carolinas women's basketball Saturday at Spartanburg, S.C. Katie Paschal led the Trojans with 16 points, while Ty Wallace recorded a double-double with career highs of 14 points and 14 rebounds.
Mount Olive (10-7 overall, 5-4 Conference Carolinas) led from the start as Joneiqua Gary's three-pointer broke a scoreless tie and Kirksten Mitchell's three gave the Trojans a 17-4 lead with 12:20 left in the first half. The margin never fell below double digits and Leah Graham's jumper with 8:03 remaining gave Mount Olive its biggest lead of the half at 23-7.
Converse (0-17, 0-9) got as close as 10 points on Avery Winchester's layup with 28 seconds left. Paschal answered with a jumper with four seconds remaining and the Trojans led 27-15 at halftime.
The Valkyries stayed within striking range until a three-pointer by Mitchell triggered a 14-3 Trojan run to break the game open. Mount Olive's lead reached the 20-point mark for the first time on Wallace's basket with just over 10 minutes left and Paschal added a pair of free throws to give the Trojans a 49-27 advantage with 8:59 remaining in the contest.
The margin never fell below 18 points the rest of the way and Mount Olive built the lead to as many as 24 points.
Wallace reached a career high in rebounds for the second consecutive game. She pulled down 13 boards in Wednesday's win over Lees-McRae. Seven of Wallace's rebounds were on the offensive end. Jasmine McDonald had 12 rebounds and Anamaria Zjacic, who also had 13 rebounds Wednesday, added nine rebounds Saturday. Mount Olive outrebounded Converse 59-34.
Mitchell finished with 13 points off the bench, while McDonald added eight points, five assists and four steals.
Converse was led by Samira Gilcrese with 10 points, while Brooke Garrison shared game-high honors with McDonald with five assists.
Coach Lee's path to her second 100 wins took only four full seasons and parts of two others. Having taken over a program going through a rebuilding stage in 2000-01, Lee reached the 100-win mark 10 games into the 2008-09 season.
Mount Olive entered this year on a streak of eight consecutive winning seasons under Lee, including three 20-win seasons and two seasons of 18 wins or more. The Trojans have won two Conference Carolinas championships and have the NCAA Division II Tournament on two occasions under Lee, including a conference championship and NCAA Tournament appearance last year.
Mount Olive returns to action Wednesday as the Trojans travel to Wilson, N.C., to take on Barton in a Conference Carolinas match-up. Tip-off is 5:30 p.m.