ANDERSON, S.C. -- A strong defensive effort propelled the Anderson women's basketball team to its second straight win as the Trojans defeated Converse, 77-53, in Conference Carolinas action Thursday night at the Abney Athletic Center. Converse's Ashley Arff scored the first points of the night on a deep 3-pointer just seconds into the contest, but it proved to be the Valkyries only lead of the night as Anderson junior guard Ashley Abed answered on the other end with a trey from the left wing to knot the score less than a minute into the game. Anderson (5-4, 4-0 Conference Carolinas) capitalized on a six-minute scoring drought by the Valkyries to go on a 19-0 run and open their largest lead of the opening half with 13:24 on the clock. AU guard Alexa Neal sparked the surge with her first basket of the night and the Trojan's defense held Converse (0-9, 0-4 Conference Carolinas) scoreless until Arff knocked down a shot with just over 13 minutes remaining. The 5-foot-11 senior's basket began a 13-6 scoring run for the visitors over the next nine-plus minutes that trimmed AU's advantage to just 25-18 at the 4:31 mark, but following a steal by Neal, freshman Breonda Shannon dropped in a layup to push the lead back to nine. Fellow freshman Maci Siniard then scored four of the Trojans next seven points as AU held a 34-23 edge at the half. Anderson came out of the break and steadily built the lead to 46-27 just four minutes into the final stanza. "We wanted to set the tempo tonight and I think we did that," Anderson head coach Jim Brunelli said. "This was a total team effort." The Trojans shot an impressive 50 percent (28-of-56) on the night, and while it was cold outside, AU blistered the nets from the charity stripe by connecting on 15-of-16 free throws (93.8%). Anderson held a 39-33 edge on the glass and scored 18 points off 27 Converse turnovers. Abed paced all scorers with 15 points, while Siniard added 14 points on the night. Abed and Siniard shared team-high rebounding honors, with each collecting five boards. Arff led the Valkyries' offensive attack, scoring 11 points and teammate Alaina Smith tossed in 10 points. Freshman forward Katie Vaughn grabbed a game-high eight rebounds. Anderson has won five of its last seven contests, remains undefeated in league play and opens a brief two-game conference road swing at Mount Olive on Saturday. Tip-off is slated for 2 p.m. at Kornegay Arena in the first game of a women's-men's doubleheader. Game Stats