MACON, Ga. — An 8-0 third-quarter run provided the Columbia women's basketball team separation and the Lions withstood a last-minute burst by Mercer to hang on for the victory, 72-68, Sunday afternoon at Hawkins Arena.
 
Columbia (4-9) built as large as a 14-point fourth-quarter lead that it maintained with less than three minutes remaining. Mercer (8-7), which won 30 games last season and finished 14-0 as champions of the Southern Conference, didn't go down without a fight, completing a 13-1 run on a 3-pointer by Linnea Rosendal to pull the score to 70-68 with 25.7 seconds remaining.
 
Sophomore Riley Casey went 1-for-2 at the free throw line on Columbia's next possession to give Mercer the ball back with a chance to tie. However, the Lions stepped up on defense, forcing two consecutive stops to remain perfect in 2019.
 
"Mercer is a really great program and I have a lot of respect for Coach Gardner," said Columbia head coach Megan Griffith in her postgame interview. "We are building confidence and it's huge. This is such a great win for our program and the confidence we have now coming off of this and going into conference play is going to take us exactly where we need to go. We're excited about what the future holds for us."
 
Sunday's win came on the heels of a 25-point blowout over Hampton on Wednesday to ring in the New Year. Casey, who scored a career-high 31 points in that game, followed with a game-high 24 points, three assists and a season-high six rebounds against the Bears. Twenty of her points came in the second half, including four 3-pointers in a matter of three minutes to give the Lions their first double-digit lead in the third quarter. The sophomore was fouled four times in the final minute as Mercer mounted a comeback and hit enough to help the Lions cement the victory.
 
First-year Sienna Durr continued to impress with 18 points on 8-of-12 shooting while completing her third double-double of the season with a game-high 11 rebounds. Durr scored six fourth-quarter points and Columbia used her effort on the glass to outrebound Mercer, 47-39. Junior Janiya Clemmons tacked on 13 points with six boards and three assists. Rookie point guard Mikayla Markham tallied a game-high five assists and first-year forward Lilian Kennedy tacked on eight boards.
 
"We got big stops when we needed to, got big rebounds, shots were going in and we were moving the ball," said Clemmons, who has scored in double figures six times this season. "We finally started clicking as a team as I think that's what we had been missing … it was just an overall great team win."
 
Mercer was led by senior forward Amanda Thompson's 18 points and 11 rebounds. Thompson was 9-for-15 from the floor while Rosendal scored 16 and Amoria Neal-Tysor added 13 off the bench.
 
The Bears hit each of their first five shots to jump ahead 12-7 but the Lions hung in there. Buckets by Markham, Casey and sophomore Imani Whittington made up a 6-0 run to give Columbia its first lead. The two sides went back and forth from there, trading leads six times in the opening 10 minutes before a last-second layup by Neal-Tysor sent the home team ahead heading to the second quarter.
 
Columbia found itself down five, 31-26, with 5:00 left in the opening half before outscoring Mercer 8-1 to take the lead into the locker rooms. Durr scored on consecutive possessions to begin the run and Clemmons hit a 3-pointer with 1:26 before the half to shoot the Lions ahead. Clemmons led Columbia with 11 points at the break.
 
Casey came out of the half on fire to turn the back-and-forth game on its head. She hit her first 3-ball at the 7:33 mark, assisted a transition bucket by Durr on the next possession and followed with three more triples on the next three possessions. She hit the last of her four threes off the left wing from well outside the 3-point arc to put Columbia up 12, 50-38, less than halfway into the period.

The Lions shot 64 percent in the third quarter to take a double-digit lead into the fourth. They maintained it until Mercer's last-minute run made things interesting. Casey hit 3-of-8 free throws in those final four trips to the line, which was just enough to help the Lions hang on.

Columbia has 13 days off from game action before it opens up Ivy League play on Saturday, January 19, at Cornell.
 
POST-GAME NOTES
- The game was the first between Columbia and Mercer since the inaugural matchup in 2007, when the Lions defeated the Bears, 60-51, at Levien Gymnasium.
 
- Casey's back-to-back 20-plus-point outings are the first of her career.
 
- Columbia remained undefeated against the Southern Conference's 10 current members. The Lions also defeated East Tennessee State, 77-72, in 1990.
 
- First-year Mikayla Markham's five assists extended her streak of five-assist games to eight.
 
- First-year Sienna Durr upped her Ivy League-leading field goal percentage to 51.3 percent.
 
- Sunday marked the last non-conference game of the season for both teams.