Lady Braves Fall In Tight Battle At SFA

NACOGDOCHES, Texas – The Alcorn State University women's basketball program fought hard the entire way but lost to Stephen F. Austin, 67-62, Saturday morning.
 
The Lady Braves (0-2) kept an explosive Ladyjacks (2-0) squad relatively contained, remaining within single digits for the majority of the contest.
 
Alcorn saw three different players score double-digit points as senior Jada Hargrove (16), junior LaRae Rascoe (14) and sophomore Diamond Hall (14) formed a high-powered trio. Hargrove and redshirt junior Aysha Kirkland were the top rebounders with five apiece while Rascoe swiped four steals.
 
Aiyana Johnson had a double-double at the half (13 points, 10 rebounds) and finished the day with 17 points and 17 rebounds to go along with a game-high four blocks for SFA. Marissa Banfield topped the Ladyjacks at 18 points and tied Stephanie Visscher for the team-high with five assists.
 
Kirkland got the scoring going with a layup before a pair of triples by SFA gave the home team a 6-2 edge. The Ladyjacks would keep that four-point margin through the rest of the first quarter as Stephen F. Austin was up 17-13 after one. The Lady Braves were outrebounded in the opening frame two-to-one (14-7) but they had a field-goal percentage of 40.0 compared to the Ladyjacks' 33.3.
 
Alcorn got the deficit down to one (24-23) with a pair of free throws by senior Jada Hargrove at the 3:28 mark of the second quarter but an 8-4 run to end the half by girls from Nacogdoches gave SFA a 32-27 advantage heading into the break. The purple and gold stifled the Stephen F. Austin three-point attack in the first half, allowing the Ladyjacks to make only 2-of-13 from behind the arc. The Lady Braves continued its stellar shooting effort with a 5-for 11 second quarter and ended the first half hitting 42.3 percent of its shot attempts (11-for-26).
 
The third quarter looked as if Stephen F. Austin was starting to pull away, taking its first double-digit lead at 43-32 with 2:49 to go. A 9-5 Lady Braves surge punctuated by a buzzer-beating three-pointer from Diamond Hall said otherwise as the end of the third quarter saw the Ladyjacks ahead by seven, 48-41. Coach Pruitt's hot-shooting ways did not carry over into the second half, going 5-of-18 (27.8) from the floor for the frame.

SFA contributed seven unanswered and 11 of the first 14 points of the fourth quarter to build its largest advantage of the day (59-44). Stephen F. Austin's lead shrunk to 11 at 66-55 with almost two minutes left in regulation but the Lady Braves turned up the heat with seven straight to close the gap to four with 12 seconds on the clock. The home squad tacked on a free throw for a final score of 67-62. Both teams were lethal in its field goal attempts during the final quarter as the Lady Braves went 9-for-17 and the Ladyjacks  were 8-for-15.

Alcorn will continue its eastern Texas road trip with a stop in Denton, Texas to battle the North Texas Mean Green on Monday at 7 p.m. inside the UNT Coliseum/The Super Pit.
 
NOTES
- Alcorn dropped to 1-11 all-time versus Stephen F. Austin, winning 88-74 over the Ladyjacks during the 1983-84 season.

- The purple and gold won the fourth quarter 21-19 over Stephen F. Austin. The Lady Braves have come alive in the final frame this season, outscoring the opposition 40-28 in crunch time.

- Hargrove notched her 21st career double-digit point performance and is now averaging 14.5 points per game.

- Rascoe has racked up at least 11 points in her first two games as a Lady Brave, accumulating 25 points (12.5 per game), eight rebounds, six steals and four assists.

- Hall had her eighth career outing with ten or more points, tallying four rebounds, three steals and a team-high three assists.
 
- Alcorn converted more points off of turnovers (19-13) and had a better field-goal percentage (41.0-36.6) than SFA.
 
Quoting Alcorn head coach Courtney G. Pruitt

Overall Statement:
"I was proud of the ladies' resilience, they fought until the end with everything the had. We really missed Jamaysha [Bernard] on the inside to rebound," said head coach Courtney G. Pruitt. "We got to bounce back and be ready for UNT on Monday."

#FearTheBrave