NORFOLK, Va. -- The Longwood women's basketball team travels to Norfolk State Thursday to play the 2024 MEAC-champion Spartans at Echols Hall in a matchup of Commonwealth schools.
STORYLINES
â–ª The Spartans lead, 12-5, in the all-time series, which dates to the 1974-75 season. Norfolk State won the first meeting, 54-35, on Feb. 27, 1975, in Lynchburg. NSU has claimed the last five games in the series, including a 76-59 victory at the Joan Perry Brock Center in Farmville on Dec. 31, 2023.
â–ª The Lancers' season-opening 81-70 win against Lincoln (Pa.) on Monday marked Longwood's first victory to begin a season since defeating Campbell, 71-48. in the Lancer Classic at Willett Hall on Nov. 12, 2010.
â–ª Longwood put four players in double figures in the win, led by senior guard
Malea Brown, who scored 21 points on 7-for-16 shooting from the field. It was Brown's third career 20-point game for the Lancers, who improved to 2-1 in those games.
â–ª Sophomore forward
Otaifo Esenabhalu led the Lancers in rebounding against the Lions, grabbing 10. It was her eighth career double-digit rebound game at Longwood. Esenabhalu ranks 22nd nationally in the early stages of the season in defensive boards per game, collecting six on Monday.
â–ª All nine players that earned playing time in the opener scored. Others in double figures were
Kiki McIntyre (13),
Frances Ulysse (12) and
Mariah Wilson (11).
â–ª The Lancers made 17 steals and forced 30 turnovers in the victory.
SCOUTING NORFOLK STATE
The Spartans opened the season with a 70-49 victory over William & Mary at Echols Hall on Monday to extend their home winning streak to 15 games. Anjanae Richardson paced three in double digits with a career-high 21 points, including five 3-pointers.
Kierra Wheeler and Makoye Diawara corralled 10 boards apiece for NSU, which outrebounded William & Mary, 51-35.
Under 10th-year head coach Larry Vickers, Norfolk State won its second consecutive MEAC championship in 2023-24, finishing 27-6 overall and 13-1 in the league.
NSU, which returns four starters and seven letterwinners from that squad, is ranked No. 14 in the CollegeInsider.com Mid-Major Top-25 Poll.
LAST TIME AGAINST THE SPARTANS
Norfolk State won last season's game between the in-state foes, 76-59, on New Year's Eve at the Joan Perry Brock Center.
Bailey Williams scored four consecutive points in the final 90 seconds of the first half to give the Lancers a 29-26 advantage. Longwood then led, 36-32, on a
Kiki McIntyre steal and
Frances Ulysse layup with 6:21 remaining in the third quarter before the Spartans engineered an 11-0 run in two minutes to take control.
Adriana Shipp-Davis posted a double-double with 20 points and 15 rebounds to pace Longwood.
LANCERS PICKED 7TH IN BIG SOUTH POLL
Longwood was picked seventh in the 2024-25 Big South preseason poll, announced at the conference media day in Charlotte, on Oct. 15. The Lancers earned 30 points in the poll to finish ahead of Presbyterian (23 points) and UNC Asheville (17).
For the fourth consecutive season and fifth time overall, High Point was chosen first with five first-place votes and 76 total points, followed by Radford with 57 points and one first-place nod and Charleston Southern with 55 points.
Winthrop in fourth, Gardner-Webb in sixth and the Blue Hose in eighth received the remaining first-place votes.
IF YOU BEAT 'EM, JOIN 'EM
Senior guard
Mariah Wilson transferred to Longwood after playing her first three seasons and 60 career games at Towson from 2021-24. Wilson averaged 1.5 points and 0.6 rebounds per game in 5.8 minutes for the Tigers.
When head coach
Erika Lang-Montgomery brought her team to TU Arena Nov. 12, 2022, Wilson played three minutes in an 83-72 Towson victory.
WELCOME BACK
Longwood assistant coach
Ivana Boyd is back in Farmville for her second stint on head coach
Erika Lang-Montgomery's staff.
Boyd, who played for Lang-Montgomery at Flagler, graduating in 2020, followed her college coach to southside Virginia as a volunteer assistant when the latter took over the program in the 2022-23 season. Boyd spent a season away as an assistant coach under Special Jennings at Jacksonville in 2023-24, helping the Dolphins to an 11-20 overall record, 5-10 in the Atlantic Sun Conference.
LUCKY 7
The Lancers will play half of their 14 non-conference games in the friendly confines of the Joan Perry Brock Center this season. That reflects a stark contrast from 2023-24 in which Longwood played seven consecutive non-league games away from Farmville from Nov. 15 at James Madison to Dec. 17 at William & Mary, traveling approximately 4,534 miles in that span.
DUNCAN CLASSIC
The Lancers are set to host their first in-season tournament since the 2010-11 season when South Carolina State, McNeese and William & Mary join Longwood in Farmville for the Shirley Duncan Classic on Dec. 6-8.
The event is named in honor of Shirley Duncan, the all-time winningest coach in Longwood women's basketball history. A 2016 Longwood athletics hall of fame inductee, and one of four associated with the women's basketball program to be part of the hall of fame, Duncan led the Lancers to a 356-263 (.575) record from 1983-05 with four NCAA Division II tournament appearances.
LET'S PLAY TWO!
Longwood freshman forward
Montgomery Bedford, a 6-foot-2 native of Baltimore, Md., and product of Baltimore City College, who was recruited to Farmville to play women's lacrosse for the Lancers, walked onto the women's basketball team this fall. Bedford is believed to be one of just four dual-sport student-athletes on Division I women's basketball rosters this season.
The others are Santa Clara forward Lauren Glover, who also plays for the Broncos' women's volleyball team; Cincinnati guard Daylee Dunn, also a member of the Bearcats' track and field team and Cal State Fullerton guard/forward Samantha Schuler, who is also on the Titans' track and field team.
Bedford is the first two-sport student-athlete to play women's basketball at Longwood since Mallory Odell did it from 2017-21, also playing for the softball team.
MS. 1,000
Longwood graduate student point guard Kiki McInytre needs 126 points to reach 1,000 for her career. The Boston native averaged 6.6 points per game last season, appearing in all 30 contests. She averaged 10.9 points per game in 61 games playing at NCAA Division II St Leo, scoring 663 points from 2020-23.
REINSON ON THE CALL
Former Longwood women's basketball head coach Bill Reinson, who coached the Lancers for parts of eight seasons from 2010-18, winning 58 games, returns to Farmville to join the "Voice of the Lancers" Sam Hovan on the call of selected home ESPN+ broadcasts from the Joan Perry Brock Center in 2024-25.
STUDENT-ATHLETES
No fewer than 10 Longwood women's basketball student-athletes were named to the 2023-24 Big South Presidential Honor Roll in June. To be included on the list, student-athletes must maintain at least a 3.0 (on a 4.0 scale) for the academic year.
The players who achieved the feat were Lainey Bone,
Malea Brown,
Stephanie Davis,
Otaifo Esenabhalu,
Amor Harris,
Kiki McIntyre,
Nalani Simmons,
Janay Turner Frances Ulysse and
Bailey Williams.
Additionally, the Lancers earned their highest semester team grade-point average in history at 3.42 in the spring with McIntyre, Simmons and Turner collecting perfect 4.0 GPAs for the term.
STUDENT-ATHLETES, PART II
Kiki McIntyre and
Bailey Williams were named to the 2023-24 College Sports Communicators Academic All-District Team®. To be eligible, student-athletes must have a cumulative GPA of at least 3.5 and be starter or key contributor to their team.
MOVIN' ON UP
Last season's director of basketball operations and Player Development
Rachel Balzer earned a promotion to assistant coach in late April. Balzer came to Farmville prior to the 2023-24 after graduating from George Mason in 2023.
BACK TO WHERE IT BEGAN
The Lancers will take a trip to Gainesville, Fla., on Dec. 15 to clash with the Florida Gators. The matchup represents a homecoming for head coach
Erika Lang-Montgomery, a 1995 Florida graduate and 1989 SEC All-Freshman Team selection.
Following her time as head coach at Flagler, Lang-Montgomery returned to Florida as an assistant coach from 2019-22 on the staffs of Cam Newbauer (2019-21) and Kelly Rae Finley (2021-22), respectively.
ANOTHER GATOR
Jumping into
Rachel Balzer's vacated director of basketball operations role for the 2024-25 season is two-time Florida graduate
Jazmyn Simmons.
Simmons spent the last two seasons as a graduate assistant for the Gators after being a student manager since 2019. She provided support for UF women's basketball squads that advanced to the postseason four times, including the 2022 NCAA tournament and WNIT in both 2023 and 2021.
Simmons holds a bachelor's in health science (2022) and master's in sport management (2024) from Florida.
HUDSON JOINS AS GA
Rounding out the Lancers' 2024-25 coaching staff is graduate assistant coach
Kristian Hudson.
A native of Birmingham, Ala., Hudson appeared in 114 games over five seasons at FIU (2015-18) and Nebraska (2018-20), accumulating 1,109 points and 400 assists.
Hudson graduated FIU in three years with a degree in psychology before transferring to play for the Cornhuskers. She appeared in the first seven games of 2018-19 prior to sustaining a season-ending injury.
Hudson was part of the WBCA's "So You Want to be a Coach" class, an Arthur Ashe Jr. Sports Scholar, a Big Ten Distinguished Scholar and an Academic All-Big Ten honoree, all in 2020.
She also was a four-time selection to the Nebraska Scholar-Athlete Honor Roll and named to the Tom Osborne Citizenship Team in both 2019 and 2020.
