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Vanderbilt guard Mikayla Blakes set a new NCAA freshman record by scoring 55 points in the Commodores' 98-88 win over Auburn on Sunday. 

The performance marked her second outing with 50-plus points this season, with the first one happening just two weeks ago when she dropped 53 against Florida.

In the Florida game, Blakes set the SEC single-game scoring record and tied for the second-most points ever scored by a freshman in a Division I game. For the all-time freshman record, Blakes was tied with Nevada's Chris Starr, who went for 53 in 1983, and trailed Delaware's Elena Delle Donne, who scored 54 against James Madison in 2010.

Now she holds that record all to herself. 

Blakes became the first Division I women's basketball player to register multiple 50-point games in a season since Rachel Banham (Minnesota) and Jasmine Nwajei (Wagner) each had two in 2015-16.

Kansas State's Ayoka Lee set the Division I record with 61 points against Oklahoma in 2022. 

Blakes leads Vanderbilt back from 15-point deficit

The Commodores were down by 15 points in the fourth quarter but crawled their way back into the game with Blakes leading the way. They were down by three with seven seconds remaining, but Blakes drew a foul on a 3-point attempt and made all of her free throws to send it to overtime.

After losing to Mississippi State in double overtime on Thursday, Blakes wasn't going to let that happen again. 

"I just wanted to do what my team needed me to do to win. We lost in double overtime in our last game, and I told my team that we weren't going to do that again," Blakes said on the SEC broadcast after the game. "We didn't want it to happen again, and one thing we lacked in our game against Mississippi State was our effort." 

Blakes shot 15 for 28 from the field with two 3-pointers and made 23 of 24 attempts from the foul line. And 30 of her 55 points came in the final six minutes of regulation and in the five minutes of overtime. 

This was another addition to her already impressive resume as one of the strongest candidates to win Freshman of the Year. She entered Sunday ranking in the top 10 in the nation in scoring with 21.8 points per contest. 

With Sunday's win, Vanderbilt improved to a 19-7 record on the season and 6-6 in SEC play. Up next, the Commodores will take on Oklahoma on the road on Feb. 20.