JACKSON, Tenn. – The fourth-seed Florida Southern Mocs hit six 3-pointers in the second half and upset the top-seed and 11^th-ranked Benedict College Lady Tigers 64-56 in the NCAA D2 South Region Championship game Monday night at Union University.

Florida Southern, now 27-5, advances to the NCAA D2 Elite Eight Tournament in Sioux Falls, S.D. Benedict ends its season at 29-3.

Jensen Blassage scored all of her team-high 24 points in the second half for the Mocs.

Benedict was led by Dorothy Brown with 10 points. Regime McCombs added nine points. Terri Jacobs, Destiny Betts and KaDeeja Vaughn all added eight points. Jacobs was named to the South Region All-Tournament Team.

The game was tied at 23 at halftime. Benedict pulled ahead 38-33, and a jumper by Jacobs made it 42-38 with 2:25 left in the third quarter. Florida Southern closed out the quarter with an 11-0 run for a 49-42 lead heading into the final quarter. Blassage had seven points in that key run, including a jumper with three seconds left for the final basket of the third quarter.

Benedict cut the lead to 55-50 with 3:04 left to play when Blassage hit a layup and was fouled. She sank the free-throw for the three-point play for a 58-50 lead with 2:20 left to play.

After shooting just 27.3 percent in the first half, Florida Southern got hot in the second half, connecting on 53.8 percent, including 60 percent from behind the arc. Blassage hit 8-of-11 of her shots, including a pair of 3-pointers.

"We recognize the shooters. They like to drive, and if you help, they kick it out to their shooters," Benedict head coach James Rice said. "We wanted to stay home. We didn't want to help and recover. We just got caught up in the moment. When you play good teams like that in the region, when you go help, they are going to make you pay. We tried to stay disciplined, but we fell off that a little bit, and they made us pay."

Florida Southern made eight 3-pointers for the game, six in the second half. The Tigers made just three-of-18 from behind the arc. McCombs, one of the top 3-point shooters in the country, made just one out of her nine attempts.

"I'm really proud of our young ladies. I thought Florida Southern played a really good offensive game," Rice said.

Florida Southern coach Betsy Harris said she was proud of her team's victory over a Benedict team that had dominated its first two games in the region.

"We knew we were going to have a tough time with Benedict. They're an excellent team. We didn't shoot well, again. But the girls kept playing hard and kept fighting," Harris said. "At halftime, we felt because they have so much energy and are so aggressive that they were going to come out at us hard, so we just made sure that we were going to go at them harder."