MONTGOMERY, Ala. – After a quarter and a half of sloppy play by the Lady Eagles Saturday, it appeared that Florida College would avenge its Friday loss to Faulkner. However, after the second quarter media timeout, Faulkner completely flipped the switch, riding a huge surge in the second and third quarters to come from behind and claim a home sweep of the Falcons with the 81-62 win.

Trailing 23-15 at the end of the first quarter, the Lady Eagles had posted a mere 40 percent mark on field goals and had only made one of five attempts from beyond the arc. The visitors, meanwhile, had made 47.4 percent of their shots and all of their threes and free throws while outrebounding Faulkner 12-8.

Halfway into the second quarter, the Falcons had responded to each Faulkner threat, which came in the form of three Ashlyn Adkins three-pointers. In the final five minutes of the quarter, however, the Faulkner comeback occurred. The home team outscored the opposition 19-3, forcing three turnovers and not allowing any rebounds in the time span. After Morgan Holland tied the score at 29 all with 3:59 on the clock, Audre' Anna Judie gave her team its final lead of the afternoon with a three-point play. Holland would tie it again by taking advantage of her own and-1 opportunity before Adkins gave Faulkner a lead for the rest of the contest with a bucket after two Ryann Sylvester offensive rebounds. Megan Wilkinson scored five of her team's next seven points before Adkins established a lasting double-digit lead at 43-32 with a jumper as time expired in the half. All told, Faulkner won the second quarter 28-9, having 21 boards to the Falcons' 16. The former improved its field goal shooting in the first half to 53 percent and held the visitors to 3-of-14 on shots from the floor in the quarter.

"Well, I thought Florida did a really good job coming out with fantastic energy," Faulkner Head Coach Reed Sutton said of his team's rally. "And so, I think, so a lot of that you have to give them credit for. But coming out of that timeout, we just talked about, we had high turnovers, and we had very low defensive rebound percentages. They got some offensive rebounds early, which was on our scouting, and we just can't give those up to Florida College, because they'll convert on them. And then we turned the ball over. I think we got spoiled yesterday, we only turned it over three times, and I think we turned it over three times in the first three minutes today. But we just needed to settle down, we needed to bring energy on the defensive end, settle down on the offensive end. And, you know, when we rebound, we can really bust out and go. And we're so good on the offensive transition, and so we've just got to limit people to one shot, and then we're a really good team."  

The onslaught continued in the third quarter as the Falcons were outscored 23-8 and held to 26.7 percent shooting to Faulkner's 44.4 percent as 17 of those points were scored by Wilkinson and Adkins. The latter ended another quarter with a huge shot, converting a three with 30 seconds on the game clock as the shot clock hit zero. When Florida College managed to stop the bleeding in the final period, the result was already decided.

Adkins led the effort with 25 points, six boards, five assists and two steals. Sylvester was next with nine points and seven rebounds, four on the offensive side. Wilkinson tallied 16 points with two boards and two assists, while Holland contributed 15 points and three boards. Evaiah Burrows had eight points and five rebounds and Micala Fisanick gave her team seven more boards. Faulkner's bench totaled 40 points.

Kinlee Varnell led the Falcons with 14 points, seven rebounds, and three steals. Judie had 11 points and four boards. Rylee Everett totaled eight points, six rebounds, four assists, and two steals. Na'Kayia Greene finished with eight points, five boards, and two blocks. 

The Lady Eagles finish the week with a 3-0 record, after being dealt back-to-back losses to Brewton-Parker and four losses in five games. They improve to 6-7 overall, and 3-2 in conference play, while Florida College falls to 6-12, 0-5 against conference foes. Faulkner will make the return trip to Temple Terrace, Fla., for a double-header in the last games of the regular season before the Falcons' women's program shutters at the end of the year. Faulkner stays home for its next game on Jan. 26, when it will attempt to complete a season sweep of Blue Mountain in a non-conference contest.