McDole charts career-highs to lead women’s hoops squad.
LEXINGTON, Ky. (Dec. 28, 1999) — Six Wildcats scored indouble figures and sophomore forward LaTonyaMcDole charted her second straight double-double,recording a career-high 22 points and 14 rebounds,to lead Kentucky past Tennessee-Martin 93-55 inMemorial Coliseum.
Kentucky (7-3) dominated the entire game, jumpingto a 9-2 lead to start the first half. McDole sparkedthe Cats, scoring 20 of her 22 points in the first 20minutes. Senior guard Tiffany Wait was also lit upthe nets, tallying nine of her 10 points in the firsthalf. In the second half, UK took its biggest lead(88-44) with six minutes remaining in the gamebefore the Skyhawks held the Cats scoreless foralmost five minutes. UK’s scoring slump soonended and the Cats built the lead again to +40.
McDole also recorded a career-tying six steals and10 of her career-high 14 rebounds were on theoffensive boards. Junior forward Laura Meadowsfollowed in the scoring column with 20 points whilesenior guard Erica Jackson netted 13. Alsorecording her second straight double-double wassenior center Shantia Owens. She charted 10 pointsand 10 rebounds in the Cats’ effort whilesophomore forward Tanesha Seaton and seniorguard Tiffany Wait also scored 10 points apiece.
“I am very pleased with how we performedtonight,” UK Coach Bernadette Mattox said. “Weknew UT-Martin was a good team and that theywould challenge us. But we had to challengeourselves tonight to make our defense turn intopoints.”
The Wildcats’ defense forced 37 Skyhawkturnovers, turning them into 55 UK points.Kentucky dominated the inside game, outrebounding Martin 46-31 andscoring 50 points in the paint compared to the Skyhawks’ 24 points.
“Kentucky has a really good basketball team,” Tennessee-Martin co-headcoach Gary Van Atta said. “They have a lot of weapons and are asenior-laden team. We just didn’t have any answers for them. We were ableto make a few runs here and there. Then all of a sudden they step it up againand that makes it tough on our basketball team.”
UT-Martin (2-8) was led by senior center Zabrina Harris with 21 points andsix rebounds. Center Chasity Bohannan followed with eight points and sixboards.
UK is 3-0 all-time versus UT-Martin and has won the last two meetings. TheCats now own a four-game win streak in Memorial Coliseum. Tonight’sgame was Kentucky’s first home game since Dec. 1 when it defeated in-staterival Western Kentucky. UK will play host to three more home gamesbefore traveling again, beginning with Xavier on Friday, Dec. 31 at 2 p.m.
