Women's Basketball: No. 12 Knights Down No. 21 Falcons 85-71 in Statement Victory

Baltimore County, Md. -- In a fierce, highly anticipated NJCAA women's basketball game on Wednesday, sophomore Mya Moye and the Knights did not disappoint, as CCBC Essex dispatched 2019 national semifinalist Lackawanna College 85-71 at home in front of a packed crowd in the Wellness & Athletics Center.

Moye (Anacostia), three-time defending Maryland Juco Conference Women's Basketball Player of the Month, finished with a game-high 29 points on 9-16 shooting.

The win also snapped the Falcons 15-game winning streak.

"I wanted us to come out here [against Lackawanna] and show we can play with anyone," Moye said. "During the game, coach Mike [Seney] saw that I was beating my defender regularly, and encouraged me to keep at it and either take the open shots or kick it out when my teammates were open." 

Moye did a good job of taking the shots when available and finished 8-10 from the free throw line. She did a good job with the latter as well, ending the game with a team-high five assists, to go along with four rebounds and three steals. 

Freshman Trinity Horton (Chesapeake-Baltimore County) was also feeling the electricity in the building. She ended as the game's second leading scorer with 17 points (6-16), which included hitting 5-of-13 three-point attempts. 

Sophomore Aislinn Flynn (Long Island Lutheran) finished with her third double-double in as many games and ninth of the season on 10 points and 12 rebounds. 

Sophomore Kasey Gagan (St. Raphael Academy) had 12 points, six rebounds and three assists. She also had three steals in the game to push her season total to 120.

"People think we're playing teams who aren't really on our level, so we finally got the opportunity to play somebody that's also in the [rankings]," Gagan said. "We needed to prove ourselves and I think we came out here and did that today."

The Knights (25-2) - who have not lost since December 14 - shot 38.8 percent from three, nearly 14% better than the Falcons. 

The win was especially big for the Knights, not only because Lackawanna made the national semifinals a year ago, but the Falcons came into Wednesday night allowing just 28.8 points per game. 

Essex had 35 points at halftime. 

The Knights led from beginning to end and in fact the game only saw one tie at 2-2. 

Lackawanna (23-5) did shoot better from the field, hitting 40.3% of their shots. However, they attempted 12 fewer shots than Essex.

"We've done all we can do with our schedule," said head coach Mike Seney. "We try to play the best teams. This is our third opponent that was in the final four last year and we're 3-0 against them. Shoutout to Greg Witkop for our year, he wanted us to play the best teams and I feel like we've played the best teams."

Next up for the Knights is the team's home finale on Wednesday, February 26 against College of Southern Maryland. Tipoff is scheduled for 6 p.m. Essex's season finale is February 28 at Hagerstown Community College.

*Cole Blackwell contributed to this article.