Southern Miss Lady Eagles Fall To East Carolina, 58-54
2/22/2002 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
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Southern Miss Lady Eagles Fall To East Carolina, 58-54
The Southern Miss Lady Eagles came up short, losing to East Carolina, 58-54. Southern Miss dropped to 10-16 and 3-10 on the season while ECU improved to 6-20 and 3-10.
Southern Miss shot the ball well enough to win many games at .447 (21-of-47), but could not overcome 27 turnovers, including three in the last minute while ECU was missing 4-of-6 free throws.
La'Tasha Sumerall and Tierra Lassiter led Southern Miss with 12 points, each. For ECU, Courtney Willis and Ayana McWilliams scored 12 points each.
"We made some critical mistakes there in the end," Head Coach Rick Reeves said. "We didn't run our plays. We had three or four turnovers that really hurt us at the end. I give East Carolina credit. They come in here and they had to have the win to stay alive in the running for the tournament."
East Carolina opened the game, scoring the first 15 points. Southern Miss played catchup for the rest of the half, closing to within five points, 17-12, but ECU took a 36-26 lead to the lockerroom.
Southern Miss put together a second half rally over the first 10 minutes, to tie the game at 43. Over the next four minutes, both teams traded baskets, before ECU scored four unanswered points to take a 53-49 lead, and led by as many as six, 57-51, with 1:03 remaining in the game.
The Golden Eagles cut that lead to three, 54-57, on a Sumerall three-pointer with 39 seconds remaining. Southern Miss missed several opportunties, when East Carolina missed two front ends of 1-and-1s. The Golden Eagles had two unforced turnovers in the last 22 seconds. The Pirates sealed the win with 12 seconds, when Tali Robich made one of two free throws and Willis blocked a shot attempt by the Eagles.
"We have put ourselves in a situation we didn't want to be in," Reeves said. "East Carolina came out ready to play, and we didn't. I thought the key play was when we were up two, we gave up a three-pointer."
Southern Miss closes out its regular season at home against Charlotte in the season finale for both teams. Game time is set for 2:30 p.m., Sunday.