The High Point University women's basketball team defeated Birmingham-Southern tonight, 71-56 in Big South action.

HPU improves to 11-4 (2-0 Big South) on the season while Birmingham-Southern falls to 5-9 (0-2 Big South).

Leading HPU was Katie O'Dell and Katie Ralls who put up 14 points each. Raven Truslow also hit double digits with 11.

For BSC Ashley Thornton posted 17 points. Reba Ross added 13.

Birmingham got on the board first with a jumper from Thornton in the first minute, but HPU's Ralls responded with a jumper of her own to tie the game in the opening minutes. The early minutes of the game saw each team battling for the lead before HPU went on a run late in the half.

High Point controlled most of the first half, shooting 41-percent from the floor to Birmingham-Southern's 29-percent. The Panthers took a 34-22 lead into the break.

Coming out of the intermission BSC got on the board first with a jumper by Ross to open up a 20-11 run and to put BSC within three points (42-45) of HPU at the 11 minute mark. High Point quickly retaliated going on 12 point run of its own sparked by a three pointer from Leslie Cook.

In the final minute and a half of the game HPU went nine of 12 from the charity stripe to seal the victory.

On the boards HPU out rebounded BSC 42-35 with O'Dell, Truslow and Amber Manuel each pulling down seven.

High Point will return to action on Saturday, Jan. 21 when they play host to Radford. Game time is set for 3 p.m. and is a double header with the men's team. The men's game will follow at 7.