Longwood women’s basketball lost in devastating fashion to High Point on March 9, 2025 in the Big South Championship game in Johnson City, Tennessee. A true underdog story, after finishing seventh in the Big South the season prior, the Lancers were agonizingly close to the NCAA tournament.
The Longwood Lancers women’s basketball team was one win away from a trip to women’s March Madness. Standing in their way was the number one seed, the High Point Panthers. The game began back-and-forth with both teams getting plenty of paint points. Longwood ended the first quarter shooting over 50% from the field. High Point and Longwood could not be separated on the scoreboard, even when Longwood briefly looked like they may run away with it. The score was 35-32 in favor of Longwood at halftime. Senior guard Malea Brown scored 12 points in the first half.
While the Lancers had the lead heading into the second half, their momentum dwindled after High Point cut the deficit to two points, prompting a Longwood timeout. The Lancers adjustments clearly worked as they were able to get solid looks at the basket, especially for sophomore guard Amor Harris. The Panthers used their large fan support and began chipping away at the lead until they finally forged ahead in the fourth quarter. The Lancers meanwhile, couldn’t take the lid off the basket and could only watch as High Point made tough shot after tough shot. The Lancers fell 59-53, as the Panthers won the fourth quarter 17-6.
Brown led Longwood with 14 points with Harris scoring 12 of her own. “I am still incredibly proud of the young women I get to coach every single day,” said Longwood head coach and Big South coach of the year Erika Lang-Montgomery. “We had an amazing season… I thought we battled and competed, the game went almost exactly how I thought it would go.”
Graduate student point guard Kiki McIntyre finished the season second in the country in steals, and broke the Big South single season record in steals. “It was honestly a blessing,” McIntyre said, reflecting on her career at Longwood. “I had so much fun.” Through the disappointment of how the game ended, Lancer fans have much to be excited about. Most of the team is coming back, and they nearly made March Madness in a year where they were picked seventh out of nine teams in the preseason poll. “Those polls don’t tell the whole story. No one knew who our team was or what we could be,” said Lang-Montgomery. “We didn’t feel like we were a seventh place team, so we were trying to prove that to others.”
Longwood women’s basketball made significant strides, winning 13 more games than they did the season prior. "Hopefully we'll have the majority of our team returning," Lang-Montgomery said. “We want to see Longwood back here for years and years to come.”
