UTC women can’t find basket in loss

The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga women’s basketball team struggled to find its shot in the second half of Saturday’s 64-50 loss at Furman, the Mocs’ second consecutive defeat after a fourgame winning streak.

UTC’s Dena Jarrells scored all of her teamhigh 14 points in the first half of Saturday’s Southern Conference matchup in Greenville, South Carolina, knocking down four 3-pointers. The Mocs (6-16, 4-3) made all four of their 3-point attempts in the second quarter but were 3-for-13 behind the arc in the other three; they were 8-for-12 overall from the field in the second quarter but made just 30% of their shots in the other three.

Sigrun Olafsdottir and Amaria Pugh each finished with nine points, while Abbey Cornelius chipped in eight to go along with eight rebounds and a pair of blocked shots.

“I have a hard time trying to figure out where my production is going to come from when I sub, because it’s so inconsistent,” UTC coach Katie Burrows said on the postgame radio broadcast. “Even now, with my starters, I’m not getting consistency, so we have to find that in practice this week, figuring out how we can be more consistent.

“Are we shying away from the things that we’re most successful with individually and finding ways to shine, rather than trying to do things that we’re not supposed to be doing? We’ve got to be better at those things.”

Tierra Hodges had 22 points and 17 rebounds for the Paladins (11-9, 4-2), who led 37-35 with 8:17 to play in the third quarter before going on a 12-2 run to assume control. The Mocs never got closer than eight the rest of the way.

UTC is at home for its next three games, facing Mercer (13-6, 6-1) at 7 p.m. Thursday at McKenzie Arena, then Samford two days later and East Tennessee State on Feb. 12.