Fort Myers, Fla. – The USC Upstate women's basketball team suffered a 72-45 defeat to the Florida Gulf Coast Eagles Saturday evening in Atlantic Sun action at Alico Arena.

The Spartans fall to 6-9 on the season and 1-3 in conference play, while the Eagles improve to 9-6 overall and 3-0 in the league.

Brittany Clency and Brittany Starling led Upstate offensively in the conference road contest. Clency posted a team-high 11 points on 5-of-10 shooting from the field. Starling added 10 points to go with her eight rebounds. Shelby Hicks came off the bench to pull down a game-high 11 rebounds.

Jenna Cobb and Whitney Knight each scored 12 points for FGCU, and were joined in double-figures by Stephanie Haas with 11 and 10 from Sarah Hansen.

The Eagles opened with the game's first six points as Upstate missed its first four field-goal attempts. Starling put the Spartans on the board with her layup at the 16:56 mark, but FGCU answered with five straight points and led 11-2 after DyTiesha Dunson's layup. The Eagles took a 10-point lead, 14-4, with 14:14 left on Cobb's three-pointer.

FGCU stretched its lead to 23-6 four minutes later with Dunson's layup and held a double-digit advantage the rest of the half. The Eagles led by as many as 19 points twice in the half with the final time coming with 3:55 left as Kaneisha Atwater put them in front 31-12.

The Spartans followed with a 6-1 run over a 1:17 span to trail 32-18 after a jumper by Clency. Hansen gave FGCU a 35-18 lead with her three on the following possession. Raven Jefferson recorded the half's final field-goal with one minute remaining, and Dunson sent the Eagles into the half ahead 36-19 after her free-throw.

The two teams missed a combined nine field-goal attempts to begin the second half until FGCU posted five consecutive points by Haas and Knight to increase its lead to 41-19. A pair of free-throws by Hicks put Upstate down 19 at 42-23 until a 14-6 run by the Eagles over 3:49 gave them a 56-39 lead after Hansen's field-goal. Two free-throws by Cobb gave FGCU its largest lead of the game, 58-29, with 9:10 remaining.

Clency and Alex Stanford notched the next five points for the Spartans to make it 58-34, and Stanford later made it a 20-point game, 59-39, with her layup. Upstate got back to within 20 with 2:08 left on Starling's basket to make the score 65-45 but were unable to register a field goal after that. The Eagles scored the game's final seven points to win 72-45.

The Spartans finished the game 17-of-58 (29.3%) from the field and were 9-of-18 (50.0%) at the free-throw line. FGCU was 22-of-63 (34.9%) as a team and 19-of-33 (57.6%) from the charity stripe.

Upstate held a 30-25 advantage in points from the bench.

The Spartans return to action Sunday, Jan. 19 when they travel to Johnson City, Tenn. to face East Tennessee State at 4 p.m.

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