Needing a win to keep alive their hopes of reaching the Alabama Community College Conference/Region 22 Women’s Basketball Tournament, Faulkner State did it in a big way Thursday night, exterminating the even more down-trodden Enterprise-Ozark Lady Boll Weevils 65-36 on homecoming and Sophomore Night in the Lady Sun Chiefs’ final regular-season game.

Faulkner built a 31-23 halftime lead behind medical redshirt freshman Jessica Lindsey and dominated even more in the second half, outscoring the Wiregrass Region visitors 34-13 in the last 20 minutes.

Lindsey scored 13 of her season-high 23 points in the second half after collecting 10 points and nine of her 15 rebounds in the first half.

Sophomore forward Crystal Morris tallied 11 of her 13 points in the second half and grabbed five of her eight rebounds in the first half. Sophomore point guard Kala Smith scored five points in each half.

Bay Minette’s Renee Watson, a sophomore who did not play basketball at FSCC as a freshman, and who was named Faulkner’s homecoming queen during halftime ceremonies of the men’s game that followed, scored all seven of her points in the first half.

Watson sank one 3-point field goal, one 2-pointer and both of her free-throw attempts. Lindsey was 8-for-12, all 2-pointers, from the floor and a perfect 7-for-7 at the free-throw line.

Morris went 5-for-8, also shooting nothing but 2-pointers, and sank all three of her free throws as FSCC coach Linda Pitts’ team had one of its best shooting games of the season by working the ball inside most of the time.

FSCC finished 23-for-50 for 46 percent on 2-pointers and 16-for-22 on free throws for 72.7 percent in snapping a seven-game losing streak to finish fifth in the ACCC’s South DIvision. The top six teams in each division advance to the state/region tournament.

“It was ‘do-or-die time, crunch time,’ and I just appealed to the sophomores; you know, ‘one last shot at home; your night; this could be the difference in us going to state and not going to state,’” Pitts said she told her players before the game.

“We went early to the post players. I told them that was gonna be a key, and we had to realize that because we were not that great of an outside shooting team, and we did a great job getting it in to the paint.”

Pitts said the Lady Boll Weevils “were struggling like we have all season, but I thought the emotional was — we kept the emotion the whole ballgame, and I thought that was the difference. (Enterprise-Ozark) got real frustrated, so we kinda turned around finally, and did something to somebody else (like) what we’d been doing.”

The win “was just a great team effort,” Pitts said. “I knew it was coming. I knew that we had this potential. Had we been playing like this all year, we’d be in a different slot” in the state tournament brackets.

Crystal Morris and Latoya Brown “particulary pleased” Pitts, the coach said. Brown “did a good job on the boards. Pebbles, Jessica Lindsey, did a good job on the boards.”

Enterprie-Ozark led briefly early in the game. Fortune Smith scored on a fast break to put the Lady Boll Weevils up 6-5 during a 10-0 run that gave them 13-5 lead. A 14-4 Faulkner run put the home team back in front, 19-17, when Watson launched her 3-pointer with 6:11 left in the first half.

Sierra Wigington tied the score for the Lady Boll Weevils with two free throws 5:05 before the break, then FSCC reeled off 10 straight points and never trailed again. Faulkner pushed the lead to 43-25 early in the second half, then after Enterprise-Ozark closed to 43-30 on Chalise Hopkins’ rebound basket with 12:22 to play, FSCC allowed only two more field goals for the rest of the game during a 22-6 finish.