CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – DeYona Gaston scored 23 points as Auburn women’s basketball picked up a key victory on the road Thursday night, defeating Virginia 66-57 in the SEC/ACC Challenge.
The shorthanded Tigers (6-3), with only nine players dressed, got contributions up and down the lineup as they overcame a couple of cold stretches and held off a late Virginia rally to grab their first true road win of the year.
“We wanted to come out and be aggressive and set the tone, play Auburn women’s basketball,” Auburn head coach Johnnie Harris said. “And I thought we did that. Our kids did a really good job of playing well together.
“We just wanted to make them score over us. We wanted to run them off the 3-point line. They made three of them, but we turned those threes into twos. And I thought our kids did a good job of that.
Gaston’s 23 led all scorers, and she also added six rebounds, five steals and three assists.
“DeYona, she’s just a different player,” Harris said. “She has tremendous leaping ability, and she’s able to jump over them and score. She wasn’t feeling her best, but she knew we needed her, and we needed her to play really well. She played hard. We could talk about her scoring and her rebounding, but she got five steals, too. She was in good position a lot, guarding out on the perimeter. And three assists, she’s really good at reading the defense, and she’s a good passer.”
Taylen Collins had her best night of the year with a season-high 14 points, a team-leading seven rebounds and a pair of blocks. Mar’Shaun Bostic added seven points and seven assists, and Audia Young scored eight points off the bench.
Despite a pair of cold stretches in the second and fourth quarters, the Tigers shot 46.3 percent from the field (25-54). Auburn controlled the paint early and finished with a 32-28 advantage inside. Auburn turned 21 UVA turnovers into 21 points.
The Tigers started strong, leading 24-17 after one quarter on the strength of paint scoring (12) and points off turnovers (9). That trend continued into the second as Auburn opened the period on an 8-0 run, extending the lead to as many as 15 with more than six minutes to play.
A cold stretch late in the quarter would allow the Cavaliers to cut into the deficit, including a buzzer-beating jumper to end the half with Auburn leading 37-29.
A low-scoring third quarter still saw the Tigers extend their lead to double-digits headed to the fourth at 49-38.
But the Tigers went cold to start the fourth with no field goals for nearly six minutes as Virginia cut the Auburn lead to as few as three points, using free throws and layups to chip away.
Audia Young, however, came off the bench to knock down maybe the biggest shot of the night, hitting a corner 3 with 4:06 to play for the Tigers’ first field goal of the period and pushing the lead back to six points at 56-50.
Collins and Bostic hit two more big shots down the stretch as Virginia was never able to get within less than five, and Auburn hit just enough free throws to maintain the lead.
Kymore Johnson led Virginia with 22 points and 13 rebounds, but the Cavaliers shot a season-low 35.2 percent from the field.
After 24 days and more than 9,800 miles of traveling, the Tigers are finally back home Sunday to take on UAB. The game is scheduled for a 2 p.m. CT start; it’s part of a doubleheader with the Auburn men’s team, who faces Richmond at 11 a.m.