FARMVILLE, Va. — The Longwood women's basketball team shot 54 percent from the field, grabbed 30 steals and forced 42 turnovers in a 121-35 victory over Randolph in the season opener at the Joan Perry Brock Center on Wednesday.
Sophomore Olivia Bowes scored a career-high 21 points on 7-of-10 shooting, including five 3-pointers, and classmate Lili Booker added a career-best 19 of her own, leading the Lancers to their fourth 100-point outing in the last three seasons.
All 12 players to suit up scored for the Lancers (1-0), who won their opener for the second straight season.
Longwood bolted to a 10-2 advantage in the first two-plus minutes, cruising to a 32-10 edge after the first quarter, further extending it to 58-23 at the half. The Lancers grew the lead to 92-27 after the quarters.
Longwood was playing for head coach Erika Lang-Montgomery who was away from the team attending services for her mother-in-law, who recently passed. In her absence, assistant coach Landis F. McCoy stepped in to lead Longwood and earn his first Division I head-coaching victory.
"It is really special, man," McCoy said. "You don't get these opportunities many times and definitely don't take this granted, for sure. The coaches coach for her and the players play for us still, and we just had a video chat with her after the game. So we're one family and it's just a special moment right now."
The Lancers had 28 assists on 47 made baskets on the night and limited their own miscues to just 13 turnovers while showing what they can do, and have done, on the defensive end of the floor as it marked team's most steals in at least 13 seasons.
"[This was] a definition of what we're going to look like for the entire year, for sure," McCoy said. "Super excited about how we flew around defensively, we shot the ball. That was really, really exciting to see, and it was a good time to see us against another opponent that's not in our practice all the time. It was a good test on both ends of the floor. And our younger players stepped up to the plate and knocked some shots down and it was just a good imprint of what we want to do."
Junior Frances Ulysse added 19 points and a game-best of the Lancers' 51 rebounds, while senior Jaci Bolden had her Division I career high of 16 points, adding four steals and two assists.
Freshman guard Jesstynie Scott led all players with seven steals to go with 13 points in her debut.
Pariz Minor registered nine points and a game-high 12 boards to lead Randolph, a member of the Division III Old Dominion Athletic Conference.
Longwood is back in action Saturday when it hosts Western Kentucky in a noon tip on ESPN+.
