SPARTANBURG, S.C. - In the final road game of the 2024-25 regular season, the Charleston Southern women's basketball team took care of business, defeating the USC Upstate Spartans by a 59-49 score inside the G.B. Hodge Center.
 
Charleston Southern (13-15, 9-6 in conference) held USC Upstate (8-19, 5-9 in conference) to just 19/53 from the field and 2/11 from beyond the arc in the first half. The Buccaneers started the game off hot, winning the opening tip and racing out to a 10-2 lead at the 6:24 mark of the first quarter.
 
The Spartans cut the deficit to within two, but the Buccaneers once again went on a run in the second quarter to push the lead to 24-14 with a three-point field goal from Keshunti Nichols and a layup from Shimei Muhammad. Charleston Southern held USC Upstate to just 18 first half points and led 26-18 at the break.
 
Charleston Southern continued to frustrate USC Upstate on the defensive side and pushed their lead to 14 points with a Caelan Ellis three-point field goal with 4:48 left in the third quarter. Ellis finished with nine points and had two three pointers on the evening.
 
The Spartans kept fighting, cutting the Buccaneer lead to four points with 6:17 left in the fourth quarter, but Charleston Southern was able to push the lead back up to nine points with a Catherine Alben three pointer with 5:41 to go in the contest. Prior to that, the Buccaneers had a scoring drought of over five minutes.
 
After the three pointer from Alben the Buccaneers kept control for the rest of the way and pushed their lead back up to double digits with a fastbreak layup from Saniya Jones with three minutes left.
 
Alben led the Buccaneers with 14 points on 4/11 shooting. Once again, the Big South's leading rebounder during conference play in Madison Adamson led the Buccaneers with 10 boards. Alaina Nettles had five assists and six rebounds along with two steals.
 
With the win, the Buccaneers have guaranteed themselves nine conference wins for the season and a finish over .500 in Big South play. The nine conference wins are the most for the program since the 2018-19 season. It is the first time that the program will finish above .500 in conference play since 2016-17.
 
The Buccaneers have just one more game in the regular season, as the host Radford Highlanders for Senior Day on Saturday, Mar. 1 inside the Buc Dome. Tip off will be at 2:00 PM and will be streamed on ESPN+.