MURFREESBORO, Tenn. ? The South Alabama women’s basketball team held a five-point lead at the intermission, but second half struggles sank the Lady Jags as they fell 66-46 on the road to Middle Tennessee Thursday evening at the Murphy Center in Sun Belt Conference action.
“The first half, I thought we played exceptionally well,” South Alabama head coach Rick Pietri said. “We followed through on everything that we had planned on doing, but in the second half, Middle Tennessee just took it from us and we didn’t have the resilience to fight back.
South Alabama (16-9, 7-7 SBC) will now return home to take on Florida Atlantic at 4 p.m. The game time was originally scheduled to be an hour later, but was changed as to not conflict with the Groundbreaking Ceremony of the University’s new Bell Tower and Alumni Plaza. The Lady Jags will also be participating, along with several other teams, in this year’s "Think Pink" campaign against the Lady Owls. The Blue Raiders improve to 15-10 overall and 10-4 in Sun Belt play with the win.
Amber Holt led all scorers with 27 points on 10-of-29 shooting from the field, while Shakira Nettles was the lone Lady Jag in double digits with 12.
The Blue Raiders turned up the defensive effort in the second half, limiting USA to just 15 field goal attempts and outscoring South Alabama 41-16 in the period.
After the Blue Raiders opened up the game with the first four points a minute and a half into the contest, South Alabama used the long range shot and responded with an 11-0 run over the next four minutes to grab an early lead. During the Jaguar run, Karina Sproal, Amanda Leonard and Shakira Nettles each knocked down a trey to lead the South Alabama attack. Holt, the MTSU All-American, led the way for the Blue Raiders over the next several minutes, recording nine of their 11 points over that stretch and later put MTSU back on top 19-18 with another field goal at the 7:12 mark.
Middle Tennessee held the lead until with South Alabama trailing 23-20 with just over four minutes left in the opening half, Nettles sparked a 10-2 run for the Lady Jags to end the half with two back-top-back buckets, the second coming on a layup in which the sophomore guard was fouled. Nettles converted on her bonus shot to put USA back on top by one (25-23). After a pair of Jeanette Tucker free throws South Alabama headed into the locker room with the 30-25 advantage. Middle Tennessee’s lone field goal in the final minutes of the half came on a Holt steal and layup with 10 seconds left on the clock.
Holt led all scorers in the opening 20 minutes of play with 15 points, while Nettles recorded 10 for the Lady Jags.
After missing all 11 of its attempts from three-point range in the first half, MTSU knocked down three from long range in the first five minutes of the second stanza to cut the Jag advantage to one at 37-36. Chelsea Lymon then stole the ball and found Emily Queen, who was fouled and converted on an “old-fashioned” play to give the Blue Raiders a 39-37 lead with just under 15 minutes left.
With the score knotted up at 41-41 with just over 11 minutes remaining, the Blue Raiders took control, reeling off 17 unanswered points. Brandi Brown ignited the run with another MTSU trey from the top of the key . LaToya Barclay, who had been scoreless, capped off the run with the final eight points, two of which came from beyond the arc. The final Barclay three-pointer put Middle Tennessee out in front 58-41 with four minutes remaining. During the MTSU scoring spurt, South Alabama did not help its cause as the Jags went scoreless over a nine minute stretch. Leonard finally ended the run with a pair of free throws at the 3:43 mark. Middle Tennessee went on to take the 20-point victory.
