LOUSIVILLE – The Jacksonville State women's basketball team clinched the ASUN West Division Championship with a come-from-behind win, 77-64, over Bellarmine on Sunday afternoon and have secured a No. 1 seed for the ASUN Championship Tournament.

The 20^th win of the year sets a D-I era program record for wins in a single-season as the Gamecocks are 20-6 with just two games remaining. The previous record for single-season D-I wins was held by the 2014-15 and 2017-18 teams, led by Head Coach Rick Pietri, with 19 wins. Pietri's teams hold the top-three winningest seasons in JSU's 28-year history in Division I.

"It means a lot to win the West and reach 20 wins," said Pietri. "With the losses we had coming off last year, the fact that this team has found a way to reach this milestone as well as win a division title – I just feel great for these kids that they were able to accomplish this."

The Gamecocks outscored Bellarmine 37-15 over the last 14 minutes of play after trailing by as many as nine points. Out of a timeout in the third with the Gamecocks down 49-40, a pair of jumpers from Kiana Johnson and Imari Martin, along with a three from Kyra Williams, cut the deficit to three, 50-47. A layup from Gavin followed by another jumper from Johnson tied the game, 51-51. With 24 seconds remaining in the quarter, Keiara Griffin hit her second three-pointer of the game to give JSU a 54-51 lead, capping a 14-2 run. The offensive output continued into the fourth quarter for JSU as Martin and Williams each added three's, pushing the lead to nine. Williams capped a 12-0 for with a layup to give the Gamecocks their largest lead of the afternoon, 72-54 with 5:04 to play. JSU would hold on for a 77-64 win inside Freedom Hall.

"For the first two and half quarters Bellarmine was the hungrier team and played with more urgency and energy and I think that's why they had the nine-point lead. Fortunately, after the media timeout in the third quarter, Coach Warmley said something to them in the huddle very vociferously and we just talked about the fact that if somebody had never seen us play and you said, 'one of these teams has won 19 games and one has one three and found out you won the 19, they'd be laughing'," said Pietri. It was like flipping a light switch coming out of that timeout. Our team played completely different. We made defensive plays, we started hitting perimeter shots, we got stops and started getting offensive rebounds. I think we had five or six at halftime and ended with 23. That's clearly due to effort and we just weren't playing with that kind of effort early."

Senior Kennedy Gavin led the charge on Sunday with a career-high 19 points on 8-of-11 shooting to go along with nine rebounds. Seven of her nine rebounds were on the offensive glass. Williams added a career-high 12 points that included two four-point play opportunities. Williams converted a four-point play in the first half and missed the free-throw on the second. She has totaled four, four-point play opportunities this season. Griffin added 11 points and Martin added 10 to round out a group of four Gamecocks in double-figures.

"The four-point plays are huge that Kyra hit. Kennedy Played well, Keiara played well. Madison McCoy in the second half gave us some physical energy as well. We lost Nekiyah five minutes into the game and Imari played point for most of that game-winning run. The fact she was able to do something that is not what she normally does and did it very well for us, I think that she deserves a lot of credit."

JSU dominated the glass, recording a season-high 51 rebounds that included a season-best 23 offensive rebounds. The Gamecocks turned the second chances into 25 points. The squad forced just 11 Bellarmine turnovers but turned them into 13 points. 17 of JSU's 23 offensive rebounds were in the second half as the squad finished just two field-goal attempts shy of the program record in a half with 44.
Sunday afternoon's win completes the road portion of the regular-season schedule for JSU. The squad finished 7-5 on the road this season and 6-2 on the road in conference play.

JSU returns to Jacksonville, Ala. for the final two games of the regular season with home contests against Eastern Kentucky on Thurs, Feb. 24, at 6 p.m. and against North Alabama on Saturday Feb. 26, at 3:15 p.m. Stay up to date with JSU women's basketball at JSUGamecocksports.com and on social media @JSUGamecocksWBB.