Box Score FRANKFORT, Ky. – Behind a 30-point effort from Shaia Horton, Kentucky State pulled away for a 79-59 victory in women's basketball action in the C.Y. Russell Classic on Saturday at the Exum Center.

Horton, who came into the season as a Preseason All-Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference selection, found her stroke from outside and connected on 10 of 16 3-point attempts.

"Shaia got hot," said head coach Serena King-Coleman. "And everybody on the team understands when a player gets hot that we want to feed them the ball."

The result was similar to the Thorobrettes' 19-point win over Fisk on Friday night, but rather than fighting back from an early deficit, Kentucky State opened the game on an 11-0 run and never trailed. King-Coleman attributed the difference to her team getting past some of the nerves of Friday's season opener and playing a more balanced, team-oriented game.

"Yesterday I felt like we started kind of slow," King-Coleman added. "We had a lot of nerves and had to bring that in. Overall, today we had a lot more cohesiveness, and I thought we took a big step forward as a team. We were more team oriented, we made the extra pass, and we had 23 assists compared to 15 yesterday. I thought we made a big leap from yesterday as far as how we want to look overall and how we want to move forward."

Though the Thorobrettes led throughout the game, the victory did not come easily. Kentucky State held a 19-11 lead at the end of the first quarter, but Kentucky Wesleyan trimmed it to one after an Erin Dorn 3-pointer halfway through the second quarter.

Kentucky State took a 41-34 lead to halftime, but the Panthers cut the margin to four on three separate occasions in the third quarter. Leading 52-46 late in the third quarter, the Thorobrettes went on a 15-0 run that included three 3-pointers by Horton. When the run finished, Kentucky State was comfortably in front at 67-46 with just over five minutes to play.

For the game, the Thorobrettes shot 41 percent (29-of-71) from the field and 39 percent (11-of-28) from outside while holding Kentucky Wesleyan to 27 percent (17-of-63) shooting overall and 27 percent (6-of-22) from 3-point range. Each team had 41 rebounds, and Kentucky State held a 23-8 edge in assists.

Kentucky State improves to 2-0 on the season with the win, while Kentucky Wesleyan drops to 1-3 with the loss. The Thorobrettes are back in action when they travel to Bellarmine next Saturday.