Lady Eagles Win Home Opener, 79-65
11/23/2004 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
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Lady Eagles Win Home Opener, 79-65
Shannon Stueber scored 25 points in the Lady Eagles home debut against Arkansas-Little Rock Tuesday night. |
With the win, the Lady Eagles snap a nine-game losing streak, dating back to Jan. 31, 2003 and won their home opener for the third-consecutive year.
?I think the biggest plus of tonight?s game was we controlled their runs,? McNelis said. ?A game is made of runs and we put the clamps on them defensively to stop them.
?I?m very proud of the grit and the heart the girls played with,? McNelis said. ?They played with a tremendous amount of fight. I thought their effort and intensity was good. We did make some mistakes because of our intensity, but we can improve on that. I?m proud of the way we rebounded the ball. We emphasized a lot of rebounds and we out-rebounded them by 17. That?s a huge step for us. Another positive for us is having four players in double figures, which gave us a very balanced attack. It?s good to get the first win under our belt and at home. We had a great crowd tonight. We?ve still got a long ways to go and have got to get better.?
In the first half, the Lady Eagles were down by as many as five, four minutes into the game, but re-took the lead at 11-10 with 13:14 to play, after leading 3-2 at the 18:55 mark.
Southern Miss used a 6-0 run, highlighted by four points from Shannon Stueber and a jumper by Dianca Jones, to take a three-point lead, 17-14 at the 10:24 mark and led by four, 21-17, on another basket by Stueber, who finished the first half with 12 points.
The Lady Eagles extended its lead out to eight with 1:52 remaining in the first half, on a lay-up bucket from Jones, and led by six at halftime, 35-29.
In the second half, the Lady Eagles led by five with 14:22 to play, on a basket by Kimberly Rigg.
But Arkansas-Little Rock cut the lead to 42-40 on a three-point bucket by Lydia Gonzales and tied the game at 42-42 on another basket by Gonzales.
The Lady Trojans led by one two times in the second half, the last time coming at the 9:17 mark, on a jumper by Courtenay Brown.
From there, the Lady Eagles used a 7-0 run, on two free throws and a jumper from Liz Biland and a three-point bucket from Stueber, to take a 57-50 lead with 7:10 remaining, as the team out-scored the Lady Trojans 30-15 to close out the game.
Southern Miss placed four players in double digit scoring tonight, led by Stueber?s game-high 25 points. Stueber also made 11-of-11 free throws tonight, which tied the a school record for the highest free throw percentage (1.000) with a minimum of 10 attempts for the third time, the last coming when Tanya Bullock hit 10-of-10 vs. Louisville (1/10/94).
Liz Biland (19), Deondra Carter (14), and Kimberly Rigg (10), also scored in double-digits. Rigg and Dianca Jones each had a team-high six rebounds.
Alicia Cash and Jocelyn Love added 18 apiece for Arkansas-Little Rock.
The Lady Eagles out-rebounded the Lady Trojans 37-20 and out-shot them 59.6 percent to 40.7 percent.
The Lady Eagles return to action Friday, Nov. 26, at UCF in an 11 a.m., contest.