Valdosta State’s Jordan Waugh (22) drives the lane for a shot, while Coastal Georgia’s Maria Marshall (34) defends during the Lady Blazers’ 58-38 victory at the P.E. Complex.

In their final basketball game before a two-week break in action, the Valdosta State Lady Blazers downed the Coastal Georgia Mariners 58-38 Friday night at the P.E. Complex.

On the night, four Lady Blazers (7-2) scored in double figures. Senior Sczeny Hartry led the way with14 points, finishing the game 4-of-7 from three-point range. Freshman Brooke Satterfield scored 12 points off the bench, while junior Amber Bond added 11. Senior Brittany Ferguson, who played a season-low 17 minutes, finished the game with 10 points, managing to account for seven of nine points during a stretch in the second half.

“Hartry played really well, and I think Amber Bond came off the bench and gave us a great spark,” Hill said. “Those kids did some really positive things throughout the course of that basketball game. But, our defensive ability allowed us to get to the offensive end.”

Maylissa Johnson led Valdosta State in assists, dishing out seven on the night, following up her 10-assist performance from Thursday night.

“We have great chemistry as far as on and off the court,” Hartry said. “I just think it carries over to when we are out here. I mean, Maylissa is a great passer and she always finds the right person at the right time. She just makes it easy on the rest of us.”

Valdosta State’s defensive presence was also noticeably better than Thursday night’s, holding the Mariners (9-8) to just 20.8 percent shooting from the floor. The Lady Blazers also held Coastal Georgia to just six points in the paint, coming one night after allowing a season-high 24 points in the paint to Columbus State.

Never trailing in the game, the Lady Blazers built several double-digit leads throughout the game, including a game-high 21-point lead with 36 seconds remaining.

VSU jumped out to an early 19-6 lead, the largest lead of the first half, behind a strong shooting performance from Hartry, who was a stout 3-of-4 from behind the arc in the half.

“We worked a lot this morning on zone work, so our post players were in the right place, and they were doubling down our post players because (Brittany) Ferguson has been playing great,” Hartry said when asked about the early offensive success.

From there, the Lady Blazers’ shooting went downhill, failing to score a field goal in the final four 4 1/2 minutes of the half.

To go along with VSU’s late half shooting woes, the Lady Blazers also forked over nine first half turnovers, which led to 14 Mariner points, allowing Coastal Georgia to fight back into contention, closing their deficit to just five points. CGC also took advantage of nine first half fouls called against VSU, going 5-of-8 from the free throw line.

With the late first half surge, the Mariners outscored the Lady Blazers 13-9 over the final 7 1/2 minutes, making VSU’s halftime lead 26-19.

The Lady Blazers re-extended their lead early into the second half, holding Coastal Georgia without a field goal for nearly five minutes. While the Mariners went without a field goal, VSU capitalized on a Ferguson field goal to go along with back-to-back 3-pointers from Hartry and Bond.

The Mariners once again came fighting back, managing to bring VSU’s lead back into single digits on multiple occasions in the half, until the Lady Blazers pulled away in the final nine minutes of the game, outscoring Coastal Georgia 19-9.

Throughout the game, the Lady Blazers featured multiple lineups, as 10 players saw more than 10 minutes of action on the court, something that Hill said allowed starters like Ferguson to stay rested and healthy.

“We are finally getting some of our young freshman and sophomore kids to finally fill out some rotations,” Hill said. “We have been exposed by now to all the things that teams will do against us, so it doesn’t take us forever to prepare.”