A week ago the women’s basketball team at Rollins College upended No. 14 Tampa after three previous attempts to notch a win against a Division II Top-25 team.

More importantly, the Lady Tars currently sit at No. 2 in the Sunshine State Conference standings with a 9-4 mark in league play (17-7 overall) as just three games remain in the regular season.

Amber Heistan (Photo by Jim Hogue)

With Tampa looking to hold onto the top seed with a 12-2 record entering tournament play on March 3 in Ft. Lauderdale, Rollins must continue to win games in order to fend off Barry (8-5 in SSC) and Florida Southern (8-6 in SSC) down the stretch.

In the 61-48 upset of Tampa at Warden Arena, junior Amber Heistan hit four 3-pointers in leading Rollins with 18 points and eight rebounds while sophomore Jasmine Bradley scored 12 points and junior Brooke Burgess tallied 11 points and seven rebounds.

Heistan leads the team in scoring with 10.6 points per game while averaging 5.2 rebounds and 2.6 assists per contest. Senior Brittainy Daiger, out of Lake Howell High School, averages 10.1 points and 5.5 rebounds for the Tars.

Rollins dominated the affair in the first half, getting out to a 22-10 advantage before leading 38-20 at the halftime break. Tampa would rally though, but could not get any closer than five points late in the game before the Tars extended the lead to double digits for good.

Also making big contributions in the win was sophomore Kristina Mingos, who set a new career-high with 14 rebounds (six offensive) and scored nine points.

Rollins shot 29-percent (19-of-65) from the field, held Tampa’s offense to just 24-percent (15-of-62) shooting – including 5-of-25 from long distance – and outrebounded them 56-44.

The Tars had previously lost on the road at then-No. 17 Tampa 60-53 and dropped two games against ranked Clayton State, 75-53, and, 68-62, earlier in the season.

The remainder of the schedule for the Lady Tars includes a road game at Saint Leo (13-11 overall, 6-7 in SSC) on Saturday and home games against Florida Tech (12-12, 4-9) on Wednesday, Feb. 24 and Eckerd (9-13, 3-10) on Saturday, Feb. 27.

– More Rollins College Women’s Basketball –

2009-10 season schedule

2009-10 season roster

2009-10 Sunshine State Conference page