Columbia Standard

The top-ranked South Carolina women’s basketball team hit the road Tuesday to take on No. 5 NC State in a season opening clash of Carolina hoops titans.

Led by junior guard Zia Cooke's team-high 17 points and senior guard Destanni Henderson's 14 points, the Gamecocks broke out to an early and never looked back en route to a 66-57 victory at Reynolds Coliseum, according to a team release on gamecocksonline.com. 

The Gamecocks were efficient from the field shooting at a 49% clip, as preseason Associated Press All-American center Aliyah Boston tallied 8 points, 6 rebounds and 5 blocks while controlling the Wolfpack's Elissa Cunane (8 points) in the paint. It was a daunting task for the junior Boston, as Cunane is highly touted and was the preseason Atlantic Coast Conference Player of the Year. 

“Everyone knows that the strength of our is team is getting the ball inside, and the layers and layers of bigs that we have,” South Carolina coach Dawn Staley said in the team release. “You play the percentages, you try the ball out of the bigs’ hands and not allow them to have as much involvement. It would take pretty much an expert passer to get that ball to our post players when they’re open. That’s timing. We just don’t have that right now, and so, we just did enough to win the basketball game.”

NC State was led by Raina Perez and Jake Brown-Turner, who each had 18 points. 

Staley improved to 12-2 in season openers and this was the 11th straight season-opening win for South Carolina.

The Gamecocks' road show continued Friday at South Dakota, where they improved to 2-0 on the young season with a 73-41 win led by Henderson's team-high 15 points.

South Carolina will return to Colonial Life Arena on Tuesday for its home opener in a 7 p.m. showdown with Clemson.