RALEIGH, N.C. — The Shaw University Lady Bears took advantage of several critical turnovers as they cruised to their fourth straight CIAA victory, beating Bowie State 76-55 in a game played on Saturday afternoon at C.C. Spaulding Gymnasium.

Shaw forced the Lady Bulldogs to commit 31 turnovers in the contest, which they  turned into 35 points as they improve to 11-2 overall and 4-1 in the CIAA. Bowie State drops to 4-8 overall and 1-4 in the league.  

"They had a lot of turnovers and that was the big difference in the game," said Shaw associate head coach Carl Hatchell. "Early on, they were controlling the tempo and they were slowing the game down. We like to play up and down. So we decided that we were going to speed the game up and so we changed up our defense and it definitely sped the game up."  

Both teams were relatively even shooting the ball. As a team, the Lady Bears shot 23-of-64 from the floor for a 35.9 percent rate. Bowie State was 20-of-59 from the floor for a 33.9 shooting percentage.

One key difference in the game came from the free throw line, where Shaw was 25-of-39 for 64.1 percent. The Lady Bulldogs only shot 10 free throws in the contest and sank five for a 50 percent rate.

In Thursday night's victory over Virginia Union, the Lady Bears missed just three free throws on 15-of-18 from the line. Hatchell says that the Lady Bears will continue to work during practice to improve at the line.

"Fourteen missed free throws for us isn't normal," said Hatchell. "Last game, we only missed three free throws. In this one, we missed three in the first four minutes. The only thing you can do is work on it some more at practice and hope that it carries over into the next game."

Shaw's two leading scorers, Taylor Dalrymple and Ronika Ransford, came off the bench to lead the scoring attack for the Lady Bears. Darlymple finished with a game-high 17 points and eight rebounds. Ransford finished with 16 points and five steals in the contest to contribute to a bench presence that scored 53 points in the game. Ransford, who also dished out four assists in the win, scored 11 of her points in the second half.

"Ronika is an exceptional player that can do a lot of great things for you that other people just can't do," said Hatchell. "She had some good steals, some good passes and had some good defensive play. So she had a good all-around game for us."

The Lady Bulldogs actually led in the early stages of the game, getting off to a quick 5-1 lead with 18:41 remaining in the opening half. Five minutes later, Bowie's Jasmine McIntosh buried a three-pointer to put the Lady Bulldogs up 18-13.

The Lady Bears responded with four straight points to pull within one at 18-17 thanks to buckets from Dalrymple and Ransford. Bowie State made it a four-point lead after another three-pointer by McIntosh, giving the Lady Bulldogs a 21-17 lead with 11:37 remaining in the first half.

Shaw answered with a 24-5 run over the final 11 minutes to close out the first half. With 2:02 left, Ransford buried a three-pointer to give Shaw a 38-26 cushion. After a series of miscues, misses and turnovers by Bowie State, Shaw's Chelsey Pinkstaff buried her first three-pointer of the contest, putting the Lady Bears up 41-26 with 33 seconds remaining. 

The 15-point lead, which was Shaw's largest of the period, would be the margin at halftime.  

Bowie State actually shot the ball better than Shaw in the first half. The Lady Bulldogs shot 41.7 percent from the floor on 10-of-24 compared to the Lady Bears, who were 12-of-37 from the floor for a 32.4 percent rate. The Lady Bulldogs were 5-of-11 from three-point land for 45.5 percent while the Lady Bears shot 4-of-14 from beyond-the-arc for 28.6 percent.

The difference in the first half, however, came at the free throw line. The Lady Bears were 13-of-18 from the charity stripe in the first half while Bowie State went just 1-for-4 for 25 percent. Defensively, the Lady Bears also forced the Lady Bulldogs to commit 19 turnovers.

Both teams were scoreless in the early going of the second half. It wasn't until a Crystal Gordon free throw at the 18:16 mark when the scoring drought was broken. Gordon followed up her free throw with a jumper with 17:44 remaining in the game. The bucket gave Shaw a 44-26 lead.

Bowie State's Jasmine Jacobs cut the deficit to 15 with a three-pointer, making it 44-29. The Lady Bears responded with a bucket of their own as Adana David buried a jumper from the right wing to put Shaw up 46-29. David sank two free throws at the 16:12 mark to give the Lady Bears a 19-point lead.

The Lady Bulldogs cut the deficit to 15 thanks to a pair of buckets from McIntosh and Sandra Jacobs to make the score 48-33 at the 15:29 mark. The Lady Bears answered with five more free throws, four of which came from Dalrymple, to build a 54-33 lead with 13:57 remaining.

Six straight points, including layups from Crystal Wilson and Pinkstaff, followed with a jumper by Dalrymple extended Shaw's lead to 24 at 60-36 with 11:09 remaining.

Ransford began a stretch where she scored the next six points for the Lady Bears. After Dalrymple's jumper, Ransford came away with a steal where she drove the length of the floor and converted a layup to give the Lady Bears a 62-36 lead.

After another Bowie State turnover, Ransford then buried a three-pointer from the top of the key to put Shaw up 65-36 with 10:27 remaining. Sixteen seconds later, Ransford put the Lady Bears up by 30 after sinking a free throw to make it 66-36.

Shaw's Crystal Harris buried a jumper inside the paint to give the Lady Bears their largest lead of the game at 68-36 at the 10:04 mark.

After Bowie State scored five straight to cut the deficit to 27 at 68-41, Ransford put the Lady Bears back up by 30 after successfully converting a nice three-point play. She drove inside the paint and hit a shot in midair as she was flung to the ground. Ransford buried the free throw to give Shaw the 71-41 cushion with eight minutes left.

A three-point play by Bowie State's Sandra Davis brought the Lady Bulldogs back within 27, making the score 71-44 with 7:43 remaining. After that bucket, both teams went without a field goal for the next three minutes when McIntosh buried a three-pointer to bring Bowie State with 24 at 71-47.

On the other end, Shaw answered with a quick layup from Wilson to increase the Lady Bears' lead back to 26. A missed opportunity by Bowie State led to another bucket from Ransford, who received a nice pass from Wilson for the easy layup to give the Lady Bears a 75-47 lead with 3:58 left in the contest.

The Lady Bears went without a field goal for the final three minutes of the game. Their last point came at the free throw line when Kennay Flemming hit 1-of-2 with 1:32 left. A three-pointer by Bowie State's Alisha Burley with 17 seconds remaining gave Shaw the 76-55 victory.

McIntosh was the only player for the Lady Bulldogs to score in double digits, finishing with 15 points in the contest. Jacobs and Alessandra Flores each finished with nine points in the loss.

Sequoyah Griffin contributed with eight points and five assists for the Lady Bears. Wilson also had eight points to go along with her six boards in the victory.

The Lady Bears will return home on Monday night when Lincoln (Pa.) comes to town for another CIAA contest. The game is scheduled for a 6:00 p.m. start at C.C. Spaulding Gymnasium.

"We need to be more efficient on offense and shoot a little bit better than we did today, I think that's the key," said Hatchell. "We want to keep the tempo up like we did today.  We want to get some fast breaks. So much of our offense can be generated by defense keeping you moving and we like to play the fast break basketball."