NEW ORLEANS - Monique Townson scored 14 points on 4-of-7 shooting with four free throws as top-seeded Little Rock defeated No. 9 Appalachian State 66-34 in the first quarterfinal of the Sun Belt Conference Women's Basketball tournament Thursday afternoon.

Little Rock (21-9) advances to Saturday's semifinals where they will face the winner of No. 4 Troy/No. 5 South Alabama.

The Trojans led 26-11 at half then broke the game completely open in the third, outscoring the Mountaineers, 30-10 in the period. Little Rock shot 45.1 percent from the field on 23-of-51 shooting.

No Mountaineers totaled double-digits in the points column. LaPresha Stanley led App with nine points. Little Rock's defense, which has allowed 52.9 points per game this season, limited the Mountaineers to just 26.7 percent shooting (12-of-45).

Yanina Inkina scored 12 for the Trojans as four Little Rock players reached double-digits in the game.

Appalachian State Notes
• App State held the same record through its first seven games as they did through their its seven (2-5).
• App State’s 32-point loss to Little Rock was their second worse in-conference loss of the season having lost by 42 to Texas State on February 3rd.
• The Mountaineers are winless (0-7) when they fail to hit more than two three pointers in a game.
• App State’s field goal percentage (26.8) was their second lowest of the season and the worse of all their in-conference games.
• App State’s 12 made field goals were their second lowest of the season.

Little Rock Notes
• The Trojans have never lost to App State (9-0).
• The Trojans are undefeated this season when they make more than five three pointers (4-0).
• Little Rock has advanced to the Sun Belt Conference Championship semifinals for 12 consecutive seasons.
• The Trojans are undefeated this season when they limit their opponent to less than 15 made field goals (5-0), winning each game by an average of 22 points.
• The Trojans have forced 20 or more turnovers nine times this season and are undefeated when they do so.

Quotes

Appalachain State Head Coach Angel Elderkin

Opening Statement:
“I’d like to congratulate Little Rock. I thought they played a tremendous basketball game. We obviously are well aware of how good their defense is, but I thought their offense in the third quarter couldn’t miss a shot. You couple a sixth-ranked defense in the country with a great shooting performance, and it was really tough for us to come back. I thought the key for them was taking away Bayley Plummer and they did a really nice job on that. We weren’t able to get the ball inside and execute our game plan. Again, a lot of credit to them and what they do defensively.”

With Stanley not scoring until the second period and Plummer until the fourth, what were the other options?
“We have other players on the court that can score.  I thought Nic came out aggressive, but then she got the fouls, so then we were sitting her.  So then you get to the point as a coach where you know you only have 20-30 minutes left in your season, so you play them.  Tiarra is a good scorer as well, but they do such a great job of pressuring the ball and not giving anything off the ball screens.  I thought their defense really limited what we wanted to do.

What was the adjustment to try and get Plummer going?
“We just kept telling her that she had to continue to work for the ball.  Whether she was in the low block or whether she came out to try to reverse the ball for us, they were just denying.  They stayed connected to her, and I like to say that they had a foot fight going, and they were winning the foot fight.  Every time we have played them, they put #22 (Yanina Inkina) on her, and to her credit, she has really risen to the challenge of disrupting Bayley and making those post feeds difficult.  They have done a good job and I think Coach Foley really respects Bayley, and his game plan for her was tremendous.

Little Rock Head Coach Joe Foley
Opening Statement:
“I thought we played a great defensive game. I think we started the game in a great defensive mode and I thought we picked it up even as the game got tougher as the game went along and I thought our offense kind of followed. We got off to a little bit of a slow start, offensively. It got better as the game went along, but naturally, if our defense is kicking and we’re working together, we’re a pretty tough team.”

On the game plan:
“Well the key was stopping the (LaPresha) Stanley kid, number 5. I mean she’s the one that gets them going. She played great against Arkansas State and we really concentrated on Mo (Monique Townson.) Mo’s a great defensive player anyway, but we really gave Mo a lot of help so we tried to make as tough as we could for that kid to play one on one and I think that paid dividends for us. The big kid in the middle (Bayley Plummer) who we knew we had to concentrate on blocking her out, being in great position and not letting her get rebounds. Those two things I thought we did a pretty good job of.”

On Monique Townson’s performance:
“It’s like you say, you look at the stats for (LaPresha) Stanley, she was 3-10, 1-3 and 2-2. You know that’s a great defensive effort on that kid. That kid can put up 20 on you in a hurry. So that was the key. If she got to rolling and the rest of them fell in and the big one got the rebound; they looked awesome the other day to me. I thought they did a great job and I thought we did a great job today to stop them so I think that tells a tale in itself.”

On what the margin of victory says about the team:
“Doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter. Two points now is as good as twenty-five points. If you get a ‘W’ this time of year, that’s the best thing that can happen for you because if you don’t you go home so you know, I tell the kids, don’t even think about the last game, regardless, because if you’ve got a ‘W’ and you’re moving forward, that’s what you’ve got to have. You’ve got to have momentum right now. It doesn’t matter how you play. Don’t even think about it. Just get ready for the next one.  ”

Little Rock Junior Forward Yanina Inkina

On the defensive effort against Bayley Plummer:
“We’ve been watching her play, especially me, and we realized her weaknesses and her strengths so I just took advantage of it and I think it really helped us on defense and then on offense, of course.”

On trying to find open shots:
“We tried to move the ball, drive the ball, pass it to each other and just using the gaps and basically help us to find open shots so the only thing we can do is just knock them down.”

Little Rock Senior Guard Monique Townson
On the impact that pressure defense and steals had on the outcome of the game:
“We just tried to focus on one play at a time and try to take care of the ball and make sure we got stops on the defensive end and I think we just helped each other really good and we were talking and everything was falling great so think that’s what helped us get through this game and we played well doing it.”