ROME, Ga. – They came up with perhaps the best-ever 10 minutes of basketball ever seen in the history of the program.

In the end, however, the Shorter Lady Hawks had to rely on pure determination as they captured the first-ever win over an NCAA Division II Top 25 team by handing No. 22-ranked Delta State a 63-60 Gulf South Conference defeat Monday night at the Winthrop-King Centre.

The victory, one that saw the Lady Hawks outscore DSU a remarkable 24-2 in the second quarter and take as much as a 29-point lead, improves Shorter to 11-3 overall and 8-2 in the conference heading into next Saturday's road trip to Cleveland, Tenn., where they will face league rival Lee in a game that marks the halfway point of the season.

Delta State, now 11-2 and 8-2, came to Rome leading the nation in scoring defense holding foes to 47.6 points a game, but the Lady Hawks immediately served notice that they were more than ready to take on the Lady Statesmen.

Senior guard Shakierya McClendon opened the game nailing a three-pointer to give Shorter the lead they would never relinquish and closed out the first quarter with Jackie Hudson following up with a layup on her own missed shot to provide the home team with a 15-10 lead.

That set the stage for what was perhaps one of the best 10 minutes ever recorded in Shorter history as the Lady Hawks reeled off 24 unanswered points while nearly coming up with a shutout of DSU before the Lady Statesmen finally scored their first – and only – points of the second stanza with 35 seconds left in the half.

McClendon made it a 10-point game, 20-10, when she connected from beyond the three-point arc with just over seven minutes to play in the half, and with 3:57 remaining until the break Taylor Adams hit three free throws – Delta State coach Craig Roden was hit with back-to-back technical fouls and ejected – giving the Lady Hawks a 31-10 cushion.

Adams capped the remarkable 24-0 run scoring in the paint that led to the Lady Hawks' commanding 39-12 halftime lead.

The Lady Hawks opened the second half grabbing their biggest lead of the night, 43-14, on a layup by McClendon, but Delta State suddenly turned the table on Shorter as the Lady Statesmen went on a 13-0 run to cut the gap to under 20 points, 43-27, when Chelsey Rhodes found the range from beyond the three-point arc midway through the third period.

Rhodes kept the momentum on Delta State's side in the final seconds of the stanza – DSU outscored Shorter 26-10 – when she hit a jumper to make it an 11-point affair, 49-38, then made it a single-digit contest, 49-40, at the start of the final quarter.

While the Lady Hawks continued to have trouble regaining the form they displayed in the first half – 19 of Shorter's 21 turnovers came in the final 20 minutes – Delta State found itself in position to turn in what would have been an improbable comeback as the Lady Statesmen made it a two-point game, 58-56, when Rhodes came up with a steal and a layup with 2:44 to go.

Adams and Shaundricka Mann was able to give the Lady Hawks some breathing room hitting foul shots at the line to give their team a 61-56 advantage with less than two minutes left, yet the visitors still refused to quit.

Rhodes connected on a pair of free throws with 1:24 remaining to make it a 61-58 Shorter lead and after the Lady Hawks turned the ball over on a shot-clock violation with less than 30 seconds to play, Delta State's Kaelin Kneeland scored inside with 9.6 seconds to go leaving Shorter with a 61-60 lead.

That's when Kayla Tillie stepped forward for the Lady Hawks as the freshman was immediately fouled on the inbounds pass following Kneeland's bucket and calmly sank a pair of free throws from the charity stripe to sew up the win as Delta State was unable to get a shot off as time expired.

McClendon led the Lady Hawks, who hit 63 percent of their shots in the first half and ended the game with a 51 percent mark from the floor, with 17 points, while Mann added 14 and Adams finished with 10.

Rhodes led all scorers with 25 points.

After their trip to Lee, the Lady Hawks return to Rome to begin the second half of their GSC schedule hosting league opponents Christian Brothers on Jan. 21 and Union on Jan. 23.