SALISBURY — Livingstone’s women aren’t ranked in the Division II  Coaches Poll yet, but they’re working on climbing out of the  “others receiving votes” category.

“We’re still in that little paragraph below the top 25,” Livingstone coach Anita Howard said with a smile. “But we have the athletes to have a great season. That’s the plan.”

The Blue Bears got 25 points and 15 rebounds from Kyra Crosby and took care of Glenville State 87-73 on Saturday at New Trent Gym for their eighth straight victory.

The 6-foot-1 Crosby is one of the Blue Bears’ many new faces. She put up double-figure outings as a starting forward at Alabama before arriving in Salisbury.

“She has elite talent,” Howard said. “We’ve challenged her to play elite every night.”

The Blue Bears did not look elite in a helter-skelter first half in which they shot 30.8 percent, fired passes off the wall often and managed a 35-28 lead only because of their rebounding.

Livingstone’s shaky first half was partly due to the absence of Alexis Hicks. She had a death in her family and was missing from Livingstone’s rotation.

There also was a 78-minute delay from the scheduled starting time of 5 p.m.  as the teams — and the crowd —  awaited the arrival of officials.

“We tried to stay focused when the game was delayed, but both teams started out slow,” Livingstone veteran Cierra York said. “Then everyone picked it up in the second half.”

Glenville State (2-7) started the second half hot and took a 43-42 lead on a 3-pointer by Katrina Salins with 15:55 left to play. But that was Livingstone’s wakeup call. The Blue Bears were really good the last 15 minutes.

“When they took the lead, we got angry,” York said.  “We wanted to win more.”

Labrea Walker hit a 3-pointer from the left corner to put the Blue Bears back on top, and freshman Alexis Fowler scored back-to-back buckets in the paint. Then York, an excellent mid-range shooter, finally nailed her first jump shot for a seven-point lead. That shot let her teammates know everything was going to be all right. Howard said she breathed a sigh of relief on the bench when York’s shot fell.

“Glenville State is a team that’s been ranked a lot, and they put pressure on you from baseline to baseline,” Howard said. “In the first half, we played their style of basketball. In the second half, we played our kind of  basketball. We stopped settling for jumpers and we attacked. We beat their pressure and then we did a good job when we had 2-on-1 opportunities.”

Crosby got scoring help from Walker (17 points) and York (12).

It looked like York might have a disastrous game early, but she finished with a solid outing that included a team-high four assists.

“Even when her shots weren’t falling, she kept doing the little things,” Howard said. “All of them did. They wanted to win this game for Alexis.”

Livingstone shot 52.6 percent in the second half and hammered Glenville State on the boards 66-41. That helped the Blue Bears overcome 28 turnovers.

The Blue Bears travel to Charlotte to play Queens on Tuesday. They’ll play an exhibition game at Division I UNC Greensboro next Saturday.

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NOTES: Livingstone dropped an exhibition game at D-I Western Carolina 66-55 to open the season, but even in that setback the Blue Bears were impressive. The Catamounts survived mostly because they shot 42 free throws to Livingstone’s 17.

 

GLENVILLE STATE (73): Tate 16, Salins 12, Williams 12, Tibbs 11, Jackson 8, Nix 6, Tuttle 4, Lewis 2, Smythe 2.

LIVINGSTONE (87): Crosby 25, Walker 17, York 12, Fowler 8, Malone 8, Roberts 7, Curtis 6,  Foster 2, Searcy 2, Daniels.

Glenville State   28  45 — 73

Livingstone       35  52 — 87