#8 Lady Indians defeat #6 Gulf Coast; own best season start in school history

MARIANNA, Fla. – On Wednesday night at the Milton H. Johnson Health Center, the 44^th Chipola Lady Indians Basketball team accomplished something that the other 43 could not. With a 94-67 dismantling of Gulf State College, the Panhandle's winningest women's basketball program, Chipola won their 20^th game to start the season.

Chipola Women's Basketball History 101

Chipola started women's basketball in 1977-1978 coached by Walker Swain. After winning their first game, the Lady Indians did not win another game and finished the season with a 1-5 record. The next season, Jim Pavy who had been the head coach and an assistant under Milton Johnson with the men's program, coached the Lady Indians for ten years. In 1988, Gordon Wells took over as head coach and led the team for four seasons.

The program took a break from 1992-1996 but then restarted for the 1996-1997 season. The Lady Indians have been led by six different coaches since the reboot. The two most successful during that period were David Lane, whose teams won four State Championships in nine seasons, and Greg Franklin, who won three State Championships in eleven seasons and the National Championship in the 2014-2015 season.

The 2014-2015 National Championship team, who held the record for best start in school history, won their first 19 games before falling to Northwest Florida, 67-54, in Niceville. The Lady Indians would go on to restart their win streak that carried through the end of the season. The 15 wins to close out that season would result in the team winning Chipola's only National Championship in the sport of basketball.

With a win in their next game at Tallahassee on Wednesday, January 22, Coach Mitch Rolls and his squad can be in sole possession of the second longest win streak in school history at 21 games. There have been two other times that Chipola has won 20 games. After losing in the NJCAA semifinals, the 2013-2014 team won the 3^rd place game to end their season. This, coupled with the 2014-2015 team's 19 wins to start the season produced one 20-game win streak. The other streak of 20 wins was the final 15 for the 2014-2015 season and the first five to start the 2015-2016 season.

The longest win streak in Chipola women's basketball history is 22 games, obtained by the 2013-2014 team. After a loss on the second day of the FCSAA Shootout in early December of that season, the Lady Indians went on to win the Panhandle and State Championships without losing a game. Hutchinson Community College would end the Lady Indians' streak with a 78-71 win in the NJCAA semifinals. Many members of that 2013-2014 team would get their revenge over the Blue Dragons the next season with a 54-46 win for the National Championship.

Dominant from the jump

After Jailynn Brill scored the game's first two points, Kanija Daniel, the two-time defending FCSAA Player of the Week, scored the next five to give Chipola a 7-0 lead in a little more than a minute of game time.

At the media timeout in the first quarter, Chipola held a double digit over the Lady Commodores, and, after going up by as many as 15, held a 28-15 lead after the first quarter.

The second quarter would start the same way as the first, two points from Jailynn Brill. The sophomore forward finished the game with 13 points, her second-highest output of the season.

Kanija Daniel would hit a three-pointer at the end of the quarter to bring her first-half total to 20 points. She and the rest of the Lady Indians would head to the locker room with their largest lead of the game, 51-28.

Chipola shot 42.2% in the first twenty minutes while holding Gulf Coast to just 31.0%. The Lady Indians, the NJCAA D1 leader in rebounding, hauled in 31 boards to the Lady Commodores' 19.

No let up

Chipola would continue to pour it on after the break. After Gulf Coast scored the first two points in the second half, a 7-0 run by the Lady Indians would push Chipola's lead up to 28.

Aniyah Ruddock would collect two of her 17 points at the buzzer to give the Lady Indians a 72-43 lead with ten minutes left to play.

The Lady Commodores would go on to outscore the Lady Indians in the fourth quarter but only by two points as Chipola went on to the 94-67 win and 2-0 start in the Panhandle Conference.

Game Notes

• Kanija Daniel led all scorers with 24 points. It was her fifth consecutive game of scoring 20 points or more. She has scored double digits in all but one of the 18 games she has played this season.
• Also in double digits in Chipola's 20^th win were: Aniyah Ruddock with 17; Daniya McDonald with 15; Jailynn Brill with 13; and Serena Heeren with 10.
• The Lady Indians held Gulf Coast to just 5 offensive rebounds in the game while collecting 38 defensive rebounds. Chipola leads NJCAA D1 Women's Basketball in defensive rebounds with and 37.9 per game.