KENNESAW, Ga. ? There wasn't a lot of beauty to it but Austin Peay State University women's basketball team evened its record with a 67-55 victory at Kennesaw State, Saturday afternoon.
The win gave Austin Peay back-to-back wins for the first time since the calendar year's start and it improves to 3-3. It was Kennesaw State third-straight loss and they fall to 3-5 overall.
In the first half, it was Kennesaw State that saw a lot of ugly early, missing their first 14 field-goal attempts. Meanwhile, Austin Peay raced out to a 17-0 lead before KSU's Martinique Nixon converted a traditional three-point play with 10:36 remaining. That basket sparked the Lady Owls as they scored 16 of the next 18 points to cut the lead to 19-16 with 6:55 left.
The Lady Govs stemmed the run by scoring the next six points, including two field goals following steals in the backcourt, to rebuild a nine-point advantage with 6:08 left. Austin Peay wasn't able to distance itself further from Kennesaw State the rest of the way as the offense could not get its on track the rest of the way primarily due to 19 first-half turnovers.
“I felt like when the game started we got off to that big start that we would put together a 40-minute game,” said Lady Govs head coach Carrie Daniels. “But it was almost like we got off to that start and got complacent. We have to realize that no one is going to lay down and hand it to you.”
The second half was a quieter affair as the Lady Govs committed only eight turnovers in the period and didn't allow the Lady Owls to get closer than five points the entire half. An April Thomas three-point field goal at the 2:08 mark pushed the lead back into double-digits and the Lady Govs would not be threatened the game's remainder.
Senior Amber Bacon led the Lady Govs with 16 points, making 6-of-9 field goals, including 2-of-4 from three-point range. Senior Kellea Reeves added 10 points as the only other Lady Govs player to score 10 or more points. Nine of the Lady Govs 10 players scored in the contest.
DeAndrea Bullock led KSU with 13 points while Montinique Nixon (12), Jennifer Baker (12) and Greteya Kelley (11) each joined her in double-digit scoring territory.
Austin Peay made 54.5 percent (24-of-44) of its field goals and 77.8 percent (14-of-18) of its free throws. Kennesaw State finished the game making 35.1 percent (20-of-57) of its field goals and only 56 percent (14-of-25) of its free throws. The Lady Govs shooting advantage helped them overcome losing the rebounding battle, 34-31, and committing more turnovers, 27-22.
“We have a lot of things we can look at and learn from before we start conference play, Thursday,” said Daniels. “I'm really disappointed with how many turnovers we committed and how we took care of the basketball. Then, we came off a game against Southern Illinois where we rebounded so well and came out today and gave up 18 offensive rebounds. Give Kennesaw State credit, they hustled and got to the boards, but we didn't get the job done. That's not the Austin Peay team I know and not the team I want to put on the court.”
Austin Peay returns to action when it hosts Morehead State in a 5:15 p.m., Thursday, contest at the Dunn Center.
- AP -
