WESSON -Led by solid sophomores and a pack of talented freshmen,the Copiah-Lincoln Community College Lady Wolves have been apleasant surprise in the first half of their basketball season.They are unbeaten in 10 games and ranked No. 6 in the NJCAAnational poll.

Approaching the meat of their South Division schedule, the LadyWolves are expected to be challenged by several strong teams.Co-Lin is 1-0 in South Division play after beating Gulf Coast Dec.4 in a close contest at Wesson. What remains are home-and-awaydates with Southwest, Pearl River, Jones County, Hinds and EastCentral. The Lady Wolves also have a road game at Gulf Coast.

“East Central might be the toughest in the South,” said Young.”Southwest and Pearl River could be strong, too.”

Southwest will host the South Division Tournament, Feb.19-22.

Players returned Tuesday for practice. Their first game isThursday, Jan. 4, hosting Mississippi Delta. School resumes Jan.8.

Young said he expects a demanding challenge in the 2001 portionof the schedule. “I think we will see some pretty good teams in ourdivision the second half of the season.”

According to Young, team depth has been an asset. “The mainthing is that we have had some good people who can come in and playfor us. We have depth. Our leading rebounder comes off the benchand our third leading scorer comes off the bench.”

Young was referring to Christy Brown, a 5-10 freshman forwardfrom Zachary, La. She averages 6.8 rebounds and 9.7 points per gameas a super sub.

Freshman center Mindy Livaudais, a strong 6-footer fromChalmette, La., leads Co-Lin in scoring with an 18.2 ppg average.She averages 6.2 rebounds.

Tiffany Dales, a 5-9 sophomore forward from Alexandria, La., isthe second leading scorer at 11.6 ppg. She averages 5.6 rpg.

Rusti Smith, a 5-5 sophomore guard from Brookhaven (WestLincoln) averages 8.0 ppg. She dishes out 2.6 assists per game.

Sheritha Simmons, 5-8 guard from LaCompte, La., and DeniseCatchings, 5-8 guard from Hazlehurst, are both sophomores and bothaverage 5.4 ppg. Simmons averages 3.7 assists.

Vanessa Andrews, a 5-9 freshman forward from Bogue Chitto,averages 5.3 ppg, 2.9 rpg and 2.0 steals per game.

“We have done a lot of things pretty good,” said Young. “We areshooting 30 percent from the 3-point area and we need to work onthat.”

Besides perimeter shooting, Young wants improvement on thebackboards. “We need to rebound the ball better,” Young continued.”Hopefully our outside shooting and rebounding will keep improving.We have to improve on defense, too.”

As a team, Co-Lin is averaging 77.5 points per game compared to59.7 by opponents. Co-Lin is shooting 48.5 percent from 2-pointfield goal range and making 61.8 percent of its free throws.

Livaudais makes 58 percent of her field goal attempts, a teambest; and 72.9 percent of her free throws. Andrews makes 76.2percent of her free shots and leads the team at the charityline.

The Lady Wolves outrebound foes 38.9 to 37.3.