PRAIRIE VIEW, Texas – The Alcorn State University women's basketball program held off a late Prairie View comeback attempt, with help from a career night from junior
LaRae Rascoe, to win its SWAC opener Saturday afternoon, 68-63.
The Lady Braves (5-8, 1-0 SWAC), who improved to 3-2 in conference openers under
Courtney G. Pruitt, were a perfect 6-for-6 from three-point range in the first half and hit on 6-of-11 (.545) on triples overall.
Rascoe was almost unstoppable in the first half as she went 5-of-5 from deep, made all six of her field goals on the day and contributed 17 of her season-best 22 points over the first 20 minutes. The guard from Indianapolis, Indiana also tied her season-high with five free throws made and led the defensive charge with four steals.
Freshman
Aja Wheeler tied her season-high in points scored and field goals made, going for 11 points on five field goals against the Panthers.
Juniors
Kirdis Clark and
Jamaysha Bernard each notched season-best performances as Clark had 14 points while Bernard tied her career-high with three steals.
Senior
Jada Hargrove had a relatively quiet scoring night with eight points but made up for it with on the glass, pulling in an Alcorn game-high six boards for the visitors from Lorman.
Prairie View A&M (3-10, 0-1 SWAC) was highly accurate from the court, hitting on half of their shots (24-of-48) and getting double-digit scoring outputs from Bernesha Peters (15), Ke'Asia Williams (13) and Dominique Newman (10).
Peters shined on the defensive end as she swiped a game-high four steals and Williams fell one rebound shy of a double-double as she had nine rebounds to go along with her 10 points.
The first five-and-a-half minutes of the first quarter saw four ties as both sides played to an 11-all stalemate. PVAMU outscored Alcorn 16-13 the rest of the way to cap off a high-scoring opening frame as the two teams combined for 51 points and the Panthers staked a 27-24 lead.
After the home club took a 31-29 lead the Lady Braves took over for the remaining portion of the second quarter, ending the half on a 16-4 barrage to open up a ten-point halftime cushion at 45-35.
The offensive explosion to end the second quarter quickly evaporated to begin the third quarter as Alcorn went six minutes without a point but the defense held serve over that span, allowing the Panthers to only score six points of its own in that time. Despite only scoring six points in the third frame, the Lady Braves clung to a 51-47 edge going into the final period.
Both squads saw its offenses go stagnant during the middle of the fourth, as neither side scored for a separate three-minute spans. Prairie View A&M tied the score for the first time since early in the second quarter when a jumper by Tatyana Perez knotted the proceedings at 54 with 3:47 left in regulation. A layup by junior
Nyenkeer Malwal on the ensuing possession gave Alcorn the lead for good as it held off PVAMU to earn a monumental road victory, 68-63.
Coach Pruitt's girls will wrap up its three-game Texas trip as it takes the short drive south to Houston for a date with Texas Southern at 5:30 p.m. Monday evening.
NOTES
- Alcorn improved its all-time series record to 57-26 over 83 meetings.
- With the win, the Lady Braves have surpassed last season's win total (4) in 17 fewer games.
- The visitors from Lorman crushed Prairie View off the bench, outscoring the Panthers 51-13 from its reserves.
- Coach Pruitt's squad won the turnover battle for the 11th time this season.
Quoting Alcorn head coach Courtney G. Pruitt
On finding a way to win:
"We found a way, thank goodness, we hit some clutch layups and clutch free throws in the fourth quarter. The third quarter was just awful for us, I wish we could take it back and replay that quarter but you know sometimes you have that when you get cold. We had our bigs step up and give us some crucial points when we needed it,
Diamond Hall and
Nyenkeer Malwal did a great job rebounding and making layups so we were able to steal one on the road."
On LaRae Rascoe's big night:
"LaRae is a great scoring point guard and we talked about that in the pregame show. We've been telling her and we've been on her about scoring the basketball and that we got to get more out of her so we just wanted it to be more consistent. Going forward we need to get more touches on the left side of the floor but she's been excellent and we just need too keep that going."
On shooting 44 percent from the field:
"They were high percentage shots that we were shooting, that's something we work on. We got to get our field goals made up, that category needs to go up as we average 24 per game and we shot the three-ball better than we shot the two, we were 56 percent from the three-point line. LaRae [Rascoe] made some key threes for us so we shot the ball well but it was just like ebbs and flows. We got to make sure that our shooting is consistent and we need to focus when we get to the free throw line which in my opinion is all mental."
#FearTheBrave
