Southern Miss
Little Rock
Southern Miss Falls to UALR, 70-44
12/3/2011 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Dec. 3, 2011
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - The Southern Miss women's basketball team scored its lowest point total and shot its lowest field goal percent in losing to UALR, 70-44, on Saturday afternoon.
"Number one, you have to give UALR a lot of credit," Coach Joye Lee-McNelis said. "They played a great defensive game. Going into the game, we were concerned about their defense and again, they did a great job. We go seven minutes and don't score. We had an opportunity many times to get to the rim and don't finish the shot. We did not defend well. We didn't get back in transition and gave up some baskets."
Sophomore Jamierra Faulkner pumped in a team-high 18 points and Tanecka Carey added 12 for the Black and Gold.
UALR's Taylor Gault led all scorers with a game-high 19 points while Janette Merriex had 15 points for the Trojans.
"I thought the leadership by Jamierra Faulkner was very positive," McNelis said. "We had to rely on some players that were not real focused and not ready to execute our game plan."
UALR (3-4) scored the first point of the game before Faulkner put the Lady Eagles up on a three-pointer. Hannah Fohne got loose and tied the game on a basket and Gault added a bucket for the 5-3 lead. Faulkner tied the game at 5-5 on a short jumper. From there, the teams went back and forth before USM pushed 15-11 before the Trojans used a 15-0 run over 6:45 in taking a double digit lead, 26-15. UALR held the Lady Eagles scoreless as USM went 0-7 from the field with two turnovers and committed five fouls. The Trojans finished the final four minutes out scoring Southern Miss, 9-2, for the 35-19 halftime lead.
The teams started the second half trading baskets before the Trojans put together a 10-3 run in pushing the lead to 47-27. Over the next two minutes, the Lady Eagles outscored UALR, 8-0, to cut the lead to 12, 47-35 at the 9:50 mark in the game. The home team answered with a 14-3 run over a 4:48 stretch for a 59-38 lead and putting the game out of reach for the cold shooting Lady Eagles.
The Trojans won the battle of the boards as they limited Lady Eagles to 23 rebounds while grabbing 42. USM finished the game shooting 32.6 percent from the field.
Southern Miss returns home to host ULM on Saturday, Dec. 10 at 4 p.m.
