SOUTH ORANGE, N.J. – The Jacksonville State women's basketball team opened the Seton Hall Thanksgiving Classic in South Orange, N.J., with an 82-73 win over East Carolina on Saturday afternoon inside SHU's Walsh Gymnasium.
 
The win advances JSU (4-1) to face tournament host, Seton Hall (3-1), who thumped Rider, 85-49, in its opening game on Saturday. Sunday's championship game will be at 2:30 Eastern Time at SHU's Walsh Gymnasium. Live stats will be available at JSUGamecockSports.com.
 
Saturday's victory was the first over a current member of the American Conference since JSU defeated Central Florida during the 1999-00 season, when the Gamecocks and Knights were both members of the Atlantic Sun Conference. Sunday's matchup against Seton Hall will mark Jax State's first meeting against a Big East foe since falling at Georgetown, 70-39, on February 25, 2010.
 
Senior Ki-Ki Patterson and freshman Taylor Hawks led a balanced Gamecocks scoring attack with 13 points apiece. It marked a career high for the Hawks in her first action away from Pete Mathews Coliseum. Overall, ten different Gamecocks reached the scoring column and all accounted for five or more points.
 
Redshirt junior Leah Strain pitched in a season best eight points, seven of which came in the third quarter when JSU needed a boost from the ECU press. Another late spark came from senior sharper-shooter, Gretchen Morrison, who was held scoreless in the first half but went 3-for-3 from three-point range in the second half to finish with nine clutch points.
 
ECU jumped out to a fast 6-2 lead, but the Gamecocks began to fight back fueled by a rare triple from Phelion. With the score even at 10-10, Jax State took the lead for the first time since it was 2-0 with a layup from Pearson. The Pirates pulled within one at 14-13, but JSU reeled off a 9-0 run capped by Morgan Towell's trey to make it 23-13 with just iver a minute to play in the first.
 
JSU would lead 27-18 at the end of the opening period, but scoring slowed down to begin the second as the Gamecocks had just one basket for the first half of the qyarter as ECU closed the deficit back to five at 29-24. With 3:15 remaining in the half, the score remained tight at 34-30, but the Gamecocks used a 10-5 stretch just before the break to extend its lead back out to 44-35 heading into the locker room.
 
Out of the half, ECU brought the pressure with a full-court press on most possessions in the second half. The Pirates shrunk the lead to one at 53-52 with just over three minutes left in the third when Strain buried a three to slowly swing momentum back to the Gamecocks.
 
In the fourth, JSU reached a double-digit advantage at 70-60 with 5:24 remaining, but ECU quickly had a fast break layup and three-pointer to cut the deficit in half. The Pirate were back to within four late when Hawks found Morrison in the corner for her third and final triple of the night to all but seal the contest with a little more than a minute remaining.