Southern Miss
Little Rock
Women's Basketball Falls To Arkansas Little-Rock 80-70
12/21/2005 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Dec. 21, 2005
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. -
Arkansas Little-Rock-Southern Miss Box Score
The Southern Miss Lady Eagle basketball team dropped an 80-70 decision to Arkansas Little-Rock tonight, despite 31 points from freshman Kendra Reed.
With the loss, Southern Miss falls to 3-7 on the season, while Arkansas Little-Rock improves to 7-3.
"Obviously, I'm very proud of Kendra Reed's all out effort and her all-out performance tonight," Head Coach Joye Lee-McNelis said. "I felt like she tried to put this team on her back and tried to carry it. She did a great job of trying to make a lot of things happen for us.
"I think the unfortunate thing is our other players struggled whether it was defense or offense. We been in a funk on both ends of the floor. We've worked really hard. We've got to be able to come out and play hard even in practice. I'm quite surprised at how poorly we played considering how well we've practiced.
"I'm disappointed in tonight's game, but then I thought our players fought hard to the very end. It's when we get into that middle lapse that we are not able to push through that. We've got 10 games under our belt and there is no excuse anyway more about us being young. We've got to improve."
Reed's 31 points were a season high, and she became the first Lady Eagle to score over 30 points since Angela Atterberry had 30 against Memphis on Feb. 27, 2000.
Arkansas Little-Rock opened the game on a 12-2 run, and would lead by 16, 34-18 with 4:25 remaining, before the Lady Eagles used an 11-0 run to cut the lead down to five, 34-29 with 45 seconds remaining. Arkansas Little-Rock then took an eight point lead at halftime, 37-29.
In the second half, Arkansas Little-Rock again pushed its lead out to double digits 48-35 with 14:01 to play and again by 13 with 8:26 remaining.
Arkansas Little-Rock then took its biggest lead, 60-45 with 7:16 remaining, before the Lady Eagles cut that margin down to five, 73-68 with 1:02 to play. But the Lady Eagles could not get closer, as the fell by 10, 80-70.
Arkansas Little-Rock out-shot Southern Miss 48.1 (25-52) percent to 44.4 percent (24-54), also holding a 35-34 edge in rebounding.
Heather Morris finished with a team-high 26 points for Arkansas Little-Rock, while Jocelyn Love added 20 and Renee Renz netted 11 and a team-high eight rebounds.
Along with Reed's 30 points, Ashley Boehnel added 10 points for Southern Miss, while Liz Biland added a team-high eight rebounds.
Southern Miss returns to action at home against Louisiana-Monroe on Wednesday, Feb. 28 at 7 p.m., in Reed Green Coliseum.
