GAFFNEY, S. C. - The Anderson University women's basketball team picked a great time to deliver one of its best performances of the 2015-16 campaign.
Squaring off with No. 4 seed Clayton State in the opening round of the NCAA Division II Southeast Regional at the Timken Center on Friday, Jimmy Garrity's fifth-seeded Trojans looked like a juggernaut in an 80-56 blowout.

Anderson improves to 23-6 while Clayton State closes out with a 22-7 mark.

An 18-0 second quarter spurt by the South Atlantic Conference regular season champions staggered the Lakers, and the Peach Belt Conference reps never recovered. Leading 56-44 going into the fourth stanza, AU started off the quarter with an 11-2 run and that slammed the door, moving the Trojans on to the regional semis against Augusta.

"Really, really proud of our effort," Garrity said. "Hats off to Clayton State. I don't think we've played a team that athletic. But I'm really proud of our players. We really handled their pressure which led to some transition buckets for us which was really important to get our confidence up. We just kept pushing."

Garrity said the team had a unique approach to practice leading up to the game.

"We played six-on-five," he said. "That's how we prepared. We had six defenders against five on offense."

Heather Jankowy led the charge with 20 points - including five 3-pointers - followed by Alexis Dillard (13). Jennifer Monroe, Madison Floyd and Nakia Young each pumped in 11.

Tamia Eatmon added seven points, Katie Davis scored five and Bailey Sims had a pair of free throws.

Dillard also had nine rebounds for Anderson.

"Like coach said, we played with six defenders all week at practice and I think that really helped us," Jankowy said. "Once we break the press, we're good in transition and when we knock down shots, we're good in half court."

Shay Upshaw was Clayton State's lone double-digit scorer, hitting for 11.

Andrea Benford scored nine and DaQuenna Moore and Kayla Pryce each had eight.

The first quarter turned out to be a wild one, with the Lakers grabbing an early 5-0 lead before the game started see-sawing.

Young hit a three to put the Trojans up 17-16; Clayton State answered with a trey to regain the lead; Young hit another 3-pointer with time running down to put the tally at 20-19; but then the Lakers responded with a long range bomb that beat the buzzer and gave them a 22-20 lead after 10 minutes.

The second quarter was all Black and Gold, however, with Garrity's crew using the 18-0 run to turn a 24-20 deficit into a 38-24 lead.

Clayton State was able to stop the bleeding a bit as the frame wound down, but at halftime Anderson owned a 41-31 advantage and had seized momentum with 20 minutes left in one of these teams' seasons.

AU was able to maintain its solid advantage in the third, outscoring the Lakers 15-13 to enter the final quarter with a solid 56-44 lead.

"We kept attacking and that was going to be the key against a team that pressures like that," Garrity said. "I thought we made plays from the inside and outside. Everybody came in and contributed. We shot 47 percent for the game, which was awesome."

Up next on Saturday is No. 8 seed Augusta, which stunned top seed and previously unbeaten Limestone 79-70 on Friday.

Tipoff is set for 7:30 p.m.

"We kind of hit the reset button," said Dillard, referring to AU's 67-61 loss to Wingate in the SAC Tournament finals. "We kinda wanted to get that bad taste out of our mouth so we had to regroup and get ourselves together. We had to watch a lot of film. Our wheels kept turning. We didn't want to stop playing. We came together as a team tonight."