LORMAN, Miss. – The Alcorn State University women's basketball program surrendered only 53 points to the Lady Jaguars as it held the visitors to its lowest scoring night in over a month during a hard-fought 58-53 victory.
The Lady Braves (12-16, 8-8 SWAC) improved to 8-3 inside the friendly confines of the Davey L. Whitney Complex this season and have gone 5-2 during conference play in Lorman including four straight home wins.
Sophomore
Diamond Hall went 6-of-8 (.750) from the floor while swiping a career-high five steals and scoring a tied for game-high 13 points. She also grabbed nine boards to come up shy of a double-double by one.
Freshman
Cayla Obillo also poured in 13 points with nine of those coming via the deep three-pointer.
Junior
Jamaysha Bernard added to her team-best block total, giving her nine on the campaign with her rejection against the Lady Jaguars.
Southern (13-14, 11-5 SWAC) outrebounded the Lady Braves by a margin of 46 to 36, becoming the fourth SWAC opponent to log a ten-plus rebounding margin on the squad this year.
Raven White accumulated 12 points and 12 boards to lead the Lady Jaguars in both categories as she put together a double-double on the evening.
Alyric Scott and Brittany Rose both fell painfully short of double-doubles as well with Scott posting 11 points with nine rebounds while Rose pulled down ten boards to go along with nine points.
The Columbia blue and gold began the contest by contributing nine of the first 14 points to take a 9-5 lead. Alcorn would go on a run from there with an 11-2 surge to end the frame including 11 unanswered to claim a 16-11 advantage at the end of the first.
SU closed the gap to one at 17-16 with 8:33 in the second but that was the last bucket they would get over the next eight minutes as the Lady Braves went up 24-16 with a free throw by freshman
Nia McCalphia at the 1:36 mark. Southern would break its long cold spell with a triple by Alyric Scott with 33 seconds left to set the halftime score at 24-19, Alcorn.
Alcorn kept the momentum going to a degree, upping its advantage to eight at 30-22. The purple and gold would see its edge drop down to two at the end of the period with the Lady Braves clinging to a 38-36 upper-hand.
Southern would force the first tie of the game since the 4:15 mark of the first quarter just over a minute into the fourth as the score read 40-40 and took its first lead in nearly three full quarters when the Lady Jaguars went ahead 48-46 on an Alyric Scott layup with 4:01 left in regulation. SU held a 51-49 lead with 3:18 remaining but the Lady Braves' offense got the job down the stretch, outscoring the Lady Jaguars by a count of 9-2 to secure a confidence building 58-53 victory.
Alcorn welcomes Prairie View A&M to the Davey L. Whitney Complex on Thursday evening at 5:30 p.m. looking for a season sweep.
NOTES
- Alcorn now leads the all-time series with Southern (49-32), ending a six-game skid to the Lady Jaguars in the process.
- The Lady Braves and Lady Jaguars were dead even in second chance points (9-9) and were tightly contested in the other primary categories; points off turnovers (14-12, Southern), bench points (18-16, Southern), points in the paint (30-28, Alcorn) and fast break points (11-10, Alcorn).
- The girls from Lorman tripled Southern's steal count (15-5) but were outrebounded by ten (46-36).
Quoting Alcorn head coach Courtney G. Pruitt
On grinding Southern down with defense, no ebb-and-flow to the game:
"For us we flowed the whole way through, maintaining the lead up until the last three minutes of the game. The first time that we played them we just had a rough first quarter and that's been all of our losses in conference play, it's been our first quarter. Make no mistake about this team, we are not seeded right below the fourth place spot for anything, we've won the games that we needed to win we've definitely played with the big players, we just haven't finished as well as we should. We're a team that should be respected and the Lady Braves did a great job tonight and should be respected because they're playing hard and playing teams tough."
On Diamond Hall's Outing (13 points, nine rebounds):
"
Diamond Hall's been playing great all conference season long, she's been doing an excellent job rebounding and tonight she found her way into the scoring range and was able to give us double-figures in scoring but she's been leading the way with rebounds and she gave us nine tonight through the stretch of the game. She didn't settle for shots, she attacked the basket and finished like she's supposed to and like we know that she's capable of doing."
On winning the war in the paint (30-28):
"That was a big thing for us, we wanted to attack the basket and not settle for shots. We shot the ball a little better, not as well as we wanted to shoot it but in the first quarter we came out rolling as we shot 43 percent and 50 percent from the three. I contribute that to us having a great first quarter, it's how you start and then how the game went on we were able to hold Southern at bay and still be up by five at halftime. They won the third quarter but then we came out and finished the game. It's about how you finish and about the energy you have when you finish, the team had the energy to finish at the end of the game."
#FearTheBrave
