Pensacola, FL – A trip down to Florida in the month of January is always a treat, and to the Grace Christian University women's basketball team's delight, they were able to spend last week in the sunshine state. After a late schedule change, the Tigers would face the NCCAA #2 Pensacola Christian Eagles twice, following up a slim loss on Thursday with an opportunity to bounce back on Friday.

After a first quarter that favored Grace 14-11, an ice cold second quarter would result in a 20-point halftime deficit. The deficit turned out to be a little too much for the Tigers to recover from, resulting in an 85-53 setback in their final competition against the Eagles.

One bright spot for the Tigers was the play of freshman Nikki Quist, who had a career high 17 points and 10 rebounds to go with 4 blocks.

Head Coach Ashley Xiong Vang shared some thoughts on the game:

"I thought we competed well in the first game vs. PCC. We just had to figure out how to take care of the basketball. PCC saw that we couldn't handle the pressure so they amped it up and we just couldn't recover. Our rematch we felt like we had a good game plan going in. Had a solid 1st quarter but we lost the 2nd quarter and just couldn't recover from that. We improved from the night before in turnovers but just didn't shoot well. Nikki Quist had a career high 17 points and 10 boards. She stepped up big time for us and I expect that to continue as the season progresses. Our reserves stepped in and gave us some big time minutes. Jada Reese with 6 pts and grabbed 12 boards and Zyan Tatum adding 7 points."

Next up for Grace is a game against Great Lakes Christian College in Lansing, MI this Wednesday at 6:00 pm.