MOUNT BERRY, Ga. ... Lauren Phillips scored four points, which put her at exactly 1,400 for her Berry career, as the Lady Vikings defeated Brenau 75-60 on Saturday at Ford Gym. The win improves Berry's record to 7-12 and 6-5 in the Southern States Athletic Conference. Brenau meanwhile, falls to 8-13 and is 1-10 in SSAC play.

 

Berry opened the game with a 6-2 lead on a pair of three-point buckets by Kayla Evans. The sharp-shooting Evans helped lead the Lady Vikings in the opening by going 3-of-4 from behind the arc and finishing the first half with 11 points. The freshman from Rome, Ga. finished the game with 17 total points and is now averaging 16.75 points per game over the Lady Vikings' last four contests.

 

After Berry jumped out to the early lead, Brenau went on an 11-2 run to take it's largest lead of the game at 13-8 with after Lori Pope made a layup with 12:57 to play in the first half. Pope was the only Golden Tigers player to finish in double-digit scoring, as she finished the game with 11 points.

 

Down by five the Lady Vikings rallied behind Mallory Ranfos, who over the final 13-minutes of play scored 14 of her 16 first-half points. She led Berry on a 32-13 run to finish the first half, ahead 40-26. Ranfos is the team's leading scorer this season averaging 16.9 points per game and is averaging 22.3 points per game in the Lady Vikings last six games. Ranfos is also the team's leading rebounder averaging 6.5 boards per game.

 

In the second half, Berry built upon its lead behind the efforts of younger players like sophomore Briana Caldwell who scored all 12 of her points in the second half. Caldwell also led the Lady Vikings with nine rebounds falling just shy of her third double-double of the season.

 

The Lady Vikings pushed the lead to 22 with 11:13 to play on a layup by Phillips, which put her within a field goal of the 1,400 plateau. However, Breanau was not interested in records and responded with a 22-10 run of their own to cut the Berry lead to just 10 points with 2:15 to play.

 

Berry earned some breathing room when Evans made a pair of free throws. Then a layup by Phillips with 52 seconds to play effectively iced the game and put the player on a special plane of scorers in the women's game.

 

With 1,400 points Phillips now ranks No. 10 on Berry's all-time scoring list. She is now just eight points of eclipsing Claire Moon for  the No. 9 spot on the Lady Vikings' all-time list. Moon scored 1,407 points in her career with the Berry team.

 

Berry tracks the top 30 scorers in school history and Phillips is not the only player on that list. Ranfos who now has 856 points for her Berry career now occupies the No. 28 spot on Berry's all-time list. She is now just 11 points shy of passing Jenelle Walton for the No. 27 spot on the Berry list. A transfer to Berry from Belhaven, all of those points have come in her three years on the Berry team.

 

Ranfos passed her friend and teammate Cori Cason to take over the No. 28 spot. Cason, who had a season high seven points in the game, now has 845 points over her five-year career that has seen her battle through a red shirt season after sustaining injuries that did not allow her to play last season.

 

The Lady Vikings are back in action on Thursday at 5:30 p.m. when they travel to Southern-Polytechnic. The Lady Vikings are going for the series sweep over the second-ranked team in the conference, after Berry upended the Runnin' Hornets 62-58 in Ford Gym earlier this season.

 

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