FARMVILLE, Va. – High Point erased an 11-point halftime lead for the Longwood women's basketball team to earn a 64-53 Big South Conference win at the Joan Perry Brock Center on Wednesday.
 
Preseason Big South Player of the Year Lauren Bevis scored 18 of her game-high 22 points in the second half, helping the Panthers outscore Longwood, 40-18, over the final 20 minutes. Bevis was 8-for-12 in the second half, keying a 17-for-31 (54.8 percent) shooting effort for HPU after intermission.
 
The Lancers led throughout the first half, building a 35-24 lead at the break, while limiting High Point to just 29 percent and nine field goals. Longwood connected on 11 free throws and benefitted from a 25-12 rebounding edge.
 
"I loved our fight in the beginning of the game," said Longwood head coach Erika Lang-Montgomery. "We definitely came out with a sense of urgency. Really followed the gameplan to the T the first half."
 
Bevis started the High Point (11-10, 6-2 Big South) comeback with a jumper in the paint on the opening possession of the third quarter, touching off a 10-0 run in less than three minutes. The stretch was punctuated with a 3-pointer by Faith Price as the Panthers climbed to within 35-34, forcing a Longwood timeout.
 
Janay Turner hit a jumper out of the break, but Bevis responded with a bucket of her own and Shakira Baskerville gave HPU its first lead of the game on the next trip, 38-37, with 5:44 left in the third.
 
The Lancers did not score again until Bailey Williams knocked down a jumper with 29 seconds left in the quarter to make it 47-39. Williams scored once more, this time as the third quarter expired, to pull her team within six.
 
Laney Bone tallied the first four points of the second quarter as Longwood made it 47-45 with a minute and a half gone, but a Neveah Zavala trey restored a five-point margin. With the Lancers' deficit at 54-47 with 5:45 to play, Bevis canned a triple for a double-digit edge and it later grew to as many as 13 points.
 
"Obviously they talked about some things and made some adjustments," Lang Montgomery said of High Point in the second half. "Definitely went to Bevis right away. I mean 18 points, I think, in the second half – that's huge. So, that's what they did, they found her. They got her the ball."
 
Baskerville (11 points) and Zavala (10) joined Bevis in double figures.
 
Kiki McIntyre paced Longwood (5-16, 2-6) with nine points, three steals and two assists. Fellow junior guard Malea Brown had six points and a game-high eight rebounds. LU held a 36-34 advantage on the glass.
 
Longwood next hosts Charleston Southern Saturday at 2 p.m, at the Joan Perry Brock Center.
 
"They are coming off a really good win tonight and so we've got to get ourselves ready to host them," Lang Montgomery said of the Buccaneers.
 
"Saturday is our Pink Game, so there should be a lot of motivation and desire, not just to get a win at home, but also to think about some other people that maybe are going through a really huge fight right now with a breast cancer diagnosis. So, we've got a lot of things to fuel us and motivate, and also, we've got our alumni … coming back on campus," Lang-Montgomery continued. "So, hopefully we can get ourselves ready to go and get ready to start the second round of conference."