By Mike London
mike.london@salisburypost.com

MURFREESBORO — Catawba’s women’s basketball team shot 34 percent, turned it over 21 times and was badly out-rebounded at Chowan on Thursday night.

Those are numbers that usually translate to ugly defeat, but the Indians somehow managed to leave the Helms Center with a win. They took a 48-37 victory over the Hawks, who were ranked 10th in the region.

Senior guard Elizabeth Webb led the Indians with a season-high 13 points. She also had a career-high seven rebounds while playing 38 minutes.

Chowan, a CIAA club which took a five-game winning streak into the contest, experienced  a brutal shooting night — 20.9 percent from the floor and 3-for-20 on 3-pointers. Catawba’s defense has been good and contributed to Chowan’s poor shooting.

“I guess you can call it winning with good defense and getting a win is the main thing,” Catawba coach Terrence Baxter said. “But we were badly out of sync on offense. We didn’t run any offense. We didn’t run a play right all night.”

Catawba (7-4) scored seven points in the first quarter and seven more in the second quarter but managed to get to halftime with a 14-all tie. Baxter wanted to cover his eyes, as Catawba shot 5-for-33 in the first half.

“Our bench carried us to halftime,” Baxter said. “Then we got it together some in the second half.”

It was 25-all late in the third quarter when Catawba finally found the range and created separation with an 18-5 run over an eight-minute span. Catawba went 7-for-8 in that stretch with three 3-pointers. Webb scored six during that run.

Talia Barnes scored 10 points for the Indians. Taisha DeShazo had seven points and nine rebounds.

Jada Lee scored nine to pace the Hawks (8-5).

Chowan is about 220 miles from Salisbury, but the win made the ride back seem a bit shorter.

“For a while there, it looked like it was going to be a really frustrating ride,” Baxter said with a chuckle. “But now we’ve got two wins against ranked teams.”

The other ranked team Catawba beat was South Atlantic Conference opponent Tusculum.

Catawba will try to rest some today and will have a walk-through practice as it prepares for a trip to face a very strong Carson-Newman team in a Saturday afternoon SAC game in Jefferson City, Tenn. Tip-off is at 2 p.m.

CATAWBA (48) — Webb 13, Barnes 10, Hallman 8, DeShazo 7, Garris 5, Phillips 3, Stanback 2, Gardner, Davie, Bruce, Wampler.

CHOWAN (37) — Lee 9, Weldon 8, Bagby 7, Green 6, Coker 5, Gaither 2, Williams, Petteway, Henderson, Robinson, Carter.

Catawba    7     7   16   18 — 48

Chowan     7    7   13  10 — 37