RICHMOND, Va. (January 31, 2011) — With a rare week between conference games, the Lady Lions appeared rusty rather than rested Monday night at Barco-Stevens Hall.

With snow postponing last Thursday's contest against Bowie State and a rare Saturday bye, Lincoln had not played since the Jan. 24 encounter against Chowan University. The time away from competitive action showed as LU fell hard to Virginia Union, 71-46.

Sophomore LU (1-14, 0-9 CIAA, 0-3 North) guard Brittney Waters had a team-high 16 points while Alease Tabb and Mfon Ekanem each picked up five rebounds. Freshman point guard Cynthia Johnson had a game-high eight dishes to go along with eight points.

The Lady Panthers opened up a six-point margin in the first five minutes, but Lincoln fought back and briefly took the lead on two free throws by Waters with 14:02 remaining in the opening period.

The two teams played fairly even basketball with Lincoln leading on two more occasions but never by more than a point, the last time coming on a Cynthia Johnson free throw with 9:16 left in the half for a 17-16 LU edge.

From that point, the Lady Panthers (1-14, 1-7 CIAA, 1-2 North) established control and went into halftime up, 37-22. In the second half LU got with 14 on several occasions but could not muster a run to challenge the game.

Most of the credit for the evening's outcome goes to the Lady Panthers' defense in limiting the Lady Lions to just 25.9 percent shooting from the field including just 3-of-19 from three. VUU also dominated the glass, 62-30.

Valentina Wheeler paced LU with 16 points and 11 rebounds while Yuvonna Stevens added 13 boards with six points.