Kelly Ellison had 12 points for the Lady Hawks (20-5, 9-2 SSAC East), who won their seventh straight game. The victory was Shorter's 20th of the season, marking the fourth straight season that head coach Vic Mitchell has guided his Lady Hawks to at least 20 wins.
Shorter also extended its winning streak over Emmanuel (13-11, 6-6 SSAC East) to eight games and completed the season sweep of the Lady Lions, whom the Lady Hawks beat by 21 at the Winthrop-King Centre on Jan. 15.
It was a vintage Lady Hawk performance on Thursday night as Shorter got a lock down defensive effort and balanced scoring on the offensive end to send Emmanuel to its fourth loss in its last seven outings.
Shorter held Emmanuel to 39 percent shooting and forced 17 Lady Lion turnovers. The Lady Hawks got eight points apiece off the bench from posts Shelby Farrer and Brittney Smith while starting center Megan Queen finished with six points on 3-for-4 shooting in another efficient evening for the Lady Hawks' interior rotation.
Shorter did not lead until the 8:53 mark of the first half when Smith's layup gave Shorter a 13-12 lead. Smith's bucket came as part of an 11-0 Lady Hawks' run that was capped by Robyn Foster's fast break layup for a 20-12 Shorter advantage with 5:50 left until halftime.
Emmanuel used an 11-2 run to fight back into the game and trailed just 27-26 at half, but the Lady Hawks scored the first eight points of the second half to go up 35-26. Moore had the first six of those tallies and Ellison tacked on two free throws as Shorter took control of the game.
A 3-pointer by Allison Danner and two more foul shots from Smith gave Shorter an 11-point lead with 10:15 remaining and the closest Emmanuel got was to within 60-56 on an Aubany Thomas 3-pointer with 10 seconds to play.
Farrer hit a pair from the charity stripe for the final margin.
Shorter shot 41 percent for the game despite shooting just 3-for-16 from beyond the arc. Neither team shot particularly well from the foul line -- Shorter made 17-of-25 from the charity stripe and Emmanuel made just 13-for-23 -- and Emmanuel actually won the battle of the boards 36-31.
But the Lady Hawks got timely baskets on the offensive end and timely stops on defense while getting 37 points from their bench in another impressive team effort that left Shorter just one game out of first place in the SSAC East.
Thomas led Emmanuel with 12 points, but shot just 4-for-15 after dropping 25 on the Lady Hawks in the teams' first meeting three weeks ago. Ashley Jackson added 11 points and six rebounds for the Lady Lions, who despite the loss, still cling to the East Division's fifth and final seed into the SSAC Tournament.
The Lady Hawks return to action on Saturday, Feb. 12 when they travel to Gainesville, Ga., for a 2 p.m. tip against Brenau University.
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