Women Basketball: Lady Vols stifle Indomitable Lionesses

In a sweltering gym, the Tennessee women's basketball team beat the Cameroon National Team, riding on a 19-3 fourth quarter advantage to a 66-49 victory on Friday night.

The Lady Vols were led by a trio of players from Oregon, getting 14 points from junior guard Jordan Reynolds (Portland / Central Catholic) and 10 each from redshirt sophomore center Mercedes Russell(Springfield / Springfield H.S.) and sophomore guard/forward Jaime Nared (Portland /West View).

All three players had a hand in the deciding final frame, combining for 15 of UT's 19 points in that stanza. Russell, a 6-foot-6 center coming off a gold medal performance at the World University games, continued her fine play this summer, adding 13 rebounds and three blocked shots to her stat line for the evening. That was enough to earn her MVP honors from the game's Italian organizers.

Nared chipped in eight rebounds, two steals, an assist and block, while Reynolds contributed six boards, two steals, two assists and a block.

Russell had six points, six caroms and a block in her final 10 minutes, as UT blew open a tight 47-46 tilt at the end of the third period. Her points all came in succession, as UT opened the final frame with an 8-0 run. The Lady Vols improved to 14-7 in games played on foreign soil, winning their fifth in a row and improving to 2-0 in Italy (the other win came against Pesaro in Viterbo in 2003.

Playing the first of three games during their tour of Italy, Aug. 5-13, Tennessee fell behind 10-0 in the opening five minutes of the contest.

With starters Nared, Reynolds, Russell, Andraya Carter (six points) and Jasmine Jones (four points/11 rebounds) heading to the bench, sophomore Kortney Dunbar came on in reserve to hit back-to-back threes, pulling UT to 10-6 near the four-minute mark. Freshman Meme Jackson ended the opening stanza with a three to draw the Lady Vols to within two, 18-16. Dunbar and Jackson finished the game with six and four points, respectively.

The Lady Vols led by eight (28-20) in the second quarter and later trailed by two with 27 seconds left before the half. They would trail briefly, by one, in the fourth quarter, 37-36, before seizing control immediately in the final frame.

What made the fourth-quarter dominance more impressive was the fact that the team spent Friday morning and early afternoon, walking around beautiful, but unusually hot and humid, Venice and also had a one-hour drive to get to tonight's game.

Up next for the Lady Vols is a bus ride to Florence with a brief stop in Pisa on Saturday, seeing Florence on Saturday and Sunday morning and playing a team from Lithuania on Sunday evening in Ponte Buggianese.