Saturday, February 21
Troy Knocks Off Sun Belt Leader UALR, 65-62, Wins Fifth Consecutive
TROY, Alabama – The Troy women's basketball team extended its winning streak to five games with a come-from-behind win over Sun Belt leader UALR, 65-62, on Saturday at Trojan Arena.
Troy (17-9, 12-5) extended its winning streak to five games and snapped UALR's six-game winning streak in the process. Troy trailed by 10 at halftime, but held UALR (22-4, 15-2) to 25 points in the second half and made the plays it needed to down the stretch.
Ashley Beverly-Kelley scored a game-high 23 points, her seventh 20-point game in the last eight outings. Ronita Garrett recorded her 18th double-double of the season with 17 points, 13 in the second half, and 12 rebounds.
Down by one with 1:01 to go, Garrett got a nice feed from Aissata Maiga and scored the easy basket, giving Troy a 61-60 lead. Caitlyn Ramirez then made the defensive play of the game, drawing a charge on UALR's Shanity James with 36.1 seconds to go.
Ashley Beverly-Kelley then hit two free throws to extend the lead to 63-60 just ahead of a Taylor Gault layup that pulled UALR back within one. With 11.8 second to play, Lacey Buchanon calmly scored another pair of free throws that put the lead back to three, 65-62. Buchanon finished with 11 points, 10 in the second half.
Gault's 3-pointer at the buzzer was an air ball and Troy secured its second straight win over UALR inside Trojan Arena. The win keeps Troy in third place in the Sun Belt standings, two games ahead of fourth-place Texas State who did not play on Saturday.
"We really didn't play like underdogs today, even when we were down by 10 points," Troy head coach Chanda Rigby said. "At that time my first inclination is to get in that frantic pressing mode, but we stayed back and played our zone defense, kept our gameplan and stayed in control. The maturity of our team was a big difference in this game."
Troy was down by 10 with 17:03 to go in the second half, but went on a 12-1 run to take its first lead, 41-40, since early in the first half. From there it was a back-and-forth contest with a passionate Trojan Arena crowd willing Troy to victory.
Troy, the Sun Belt's top scoring team, used its defense to spark the second-half surge. Troy forced UALR into 22 turnovers on the night, including three during the 12-1 run and three in the final 2:39 of the contest.
Gault led UALR with 20 points and six assists, but Troy held her to 3-of-10 shooting in the second half, including 0-of-3 from long range. Shanity James posted a double-double with 10 points and 10 rebounds, helping UALR outrebound Troy 40-35.
Troy outrebounded UALR in the second half, 19-16, with over half (11) of Troy's boards coming on the offensive end. For the game, Troy posted 18 second-chance points, 13 of which came in the second half.
The third-place Trojans return to the court on Thursday when they travel to fourth-place Texas State for a 5:30 p.m. game at Strahan Coliseum.
Lady Mavs Keep Rolling, Defeat UL Lafayette
ARLINGTON, Texas – The streaking Lady Mavericks vaulted into fifth in the Sun Belt Conference with Saturday's 56-42 victory over Louisiana at College Park Center.
UT Arlington (15-10, 9-7) has won six of its last seven games to make a move up the conference standings. The latest win allowed the Lady Mavs to leapfrog the Ragin' Cajuns (17-9, 9-8) with four games left in the regular season.
"It was a big win for us," UT Arlington coach Krista Gerlich said. "We did a good job of not losing our poise. Overall, we really exploited where we could get easy buckets. Our girls did a nice job of getting the ball inside and getting easy shots."
UTA's Rebekah Van Dijk helped set the tone early with establishing a physical presence in the paint. The freshman center tallied her 13th double-double with 18 points and 10 rebounds in 29 minutes.
The Lady Mavericks enjoyed a 12-point edge inside (32-20) and out-rebounded Louisiana 42-25. UTA swept the two-game season with the Ragin' Cajuns.
Senior guard Chaun Williams added 11 points and seven boards. Junior forward Toma Zaleckaite also came up big in the paint with eight points. Freshman guard Cierra Johnson dished out six assists.
The Lady Mavericks opened the game pounding the ball inside and hounded the Ragin' Cajuns defensively in taking a 13-4 lead. Van Dijk had eight points in the surge, all on layups.
"Cierra was seeing me when I was open," Van Dijk said. "Everyone did a great job."
Louisiana crawled back into it and edged ahead 18-17 late in the first half. UT Arlington answered with an 8-0 run, with five points coming from Williams, to carry a 25-18 advantage into halftime.
Louisiana would shoot only 27 percent in the first half and committed 13 turnovers, including two shot-clock violations. UT Arlington was able to overcome 14 turnovers by controlling the paint.
The Lady Mavs continued to put the pressure on in the second half and opened a double-digit lead. UTA outscored Louisiana 31-24 after the break.
"I'm excited about how we're playing," Gerlich said. "We're playing well at the right time."
Gamble Leads A-State to Win over ULM
JONESBORO, Ark. (2/21/15) – Junior guard Aundrea Gamble scored a game-high 23 points to lead the Arkansas State women’s basketball team to a 69-61 Sun Belt Conference victory over Louisiana-Monroe Saturday afternoon at the Convocation Center.
The Red Wolves bounced back from a narrow two-point setback at league-leading UALR to improve their overall record to 18-8 and league mark to 13-3, which keeps them in second place in the Sun Belt standings with four regular-season games remaining. The Warhawks saw their record drop to 10-15 overall and 6-10 in conference play.
“I’m proud of the team for finding a way to get through it and get the win because we did give our best performance,” A-State head coach Brian Boyer said. “They had a great game plan coming in with some of their double teams, but we managed to get through the first half and did enough offensively to continue to keep a margin to where we could get a win.”
Gamble, who scored at least 20 points for the 15th time this season, was one of three A-State players reaching double figures. Junior forward Khadija Brown-Haywood finished with 15 points and senior forward Jasmine Hunt added 13 points to pace the Red Wolves attack.
Hunt scored 11 of her 13 points in the first half as A-State grabbed a 33-29 halftime advantage, but ULM was able to tie the score 41-41 five minutes into the second half. The Red Wolves then responded with a 10-0 run, which was fueled by six points from Brown-Haywood, to take their largest lead of the game with 12:32 remaining.
While the Warhawks were able to trim their deficit to just 56-53 with 7:05 left in the game, they weren’t able to get any closer as the Red Wolves used a 6-0 burst over the next two minutes to go back up by nine. Arkansas State held at least a two-possession lead the rest of the way to claim its sixth win over its last seven outings.
ULM posted a .444 shooting percentage to A-State’s .419 and held a 39-36 advantage on the boards, but the Red Wolves were more successful beyond the arc, committed four fewer turnovers and made nine more free throws.
In addition to her 23 points, Gamble posted five assists and six rebounds that both tied for the most on the team. ULM was led by two players scoring in double digits, including Alayshia Hunter with 22 points and Sharnice Brooks with 18. Brooks also hauled in a game-high 11 rebounds to collect a double-double.
The squad will return to action Thursday, Feb. 26 at the Convocation Center against UT Arlington. The game is set for a 5:05 p.m. tip-off and can be heard live on 95.3FM The Ticket/970AM KNEA or online at AStateRedWolves.com.
GSU's Andrews Earns 300th Steal, Panthers Roll to 80-70 Win over Appalachian State
ATLANTA – Georgia State outlasted Appalachian State in a high-energy, fiercely-fought 80-70 Sun Belt Conference women’s basketball game Saturday at the GSU Sports Arena.
After leading for most of the game, Georgia State saw visiting App State go a 12-2 run from 14 minutes to seven minutes and re-capture the lead 62-59 at 7:17. But, determined GSU turned defensive and went on a dominating 19-1 run to make it 78-63 with 1:08 to play.
Both teams were tied for seventh place in the Sun Belt and with only four more games to go, this one could have an impact on being one of the eight teams to qualify. That fact made the intensity more like a tournament game.
Andrews’ first steal today was her 300th career theft that makes her the second active player in NCAA women’s basketball to have 1,000 points, 500 assists, 300 rebounds and 300 steals. Only All-American Brittany Boyd of Cal has those kind of numbers.
Georgia State had its third game of the last five shooting better than 50 percent. The Panthers finished 30 of 52 from the field today (57.7%), while adding to that consistency with another 80% effort at the free throw line (16 of 20).
Appalachian State (11-14, 6-10) was topped by all-conference leader Maryah Sydnor with 21 points of 8 of 13 shooting, to go with six rebounds. Mia Marshall added 10 points and five rebounds, but fouled out with 3:55 left.
The teams started trading baskets from the opening tip, with each team making four of their six shots for a 9-9 tie after four minutes. GSU kept going with 7 of 9 made to open a 15-11 led as Gaby Moss had nine of those first 15 points. GSU’s 8-0 run built a 19-11 lead at 11:12, but had a cost as Andrews’ picked up a second foul and went to the bench.
GSU had three 10-point leads at 26-16, 34-24 and 36-26 at 4:01 of the first half. A couple treys closed that gap and the host Panthers went into halftime up 44-38. GSU shot 18 of 27 (66.7%) in the first half and App State 13 of 29 for 44.8 percent.
In the second half, GSU edged its led back up to nine points at 57=48 with 14:23. But, GSU went cold and made just 3 of 12 shots as App State got hot and went on its run to take the 62-59 lead at 7:17.
Steals and assists by Andrews started GSU’s deciding 19-1 run. Nichols had three straight buckets in that run and Ponder hit a big 3-pointer at 1:51.
Four games remain for Georgia State, starting with a road trip to UALR Thursday.
South Alabama Knocks Off Georgia Southern on ESPN3
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