Isler Nets Career-High In Defeat At JSU

JACKSON, Miss. – The Alcorn State University women's basketball program gave the first place Lady Tigers a four quarter fight behind senior Toddriana Isler's career-best 19 points but dropped the contest, 76-66.

The Lady Braves' (9-13, 5-5 SWAC) outscored the Lady Tigers off the bench, winning the war of depth (35-28).

Isler was the game's top scorer on 7-of 14 shooting (.500) while also contributing five rebounds, all offensive.

Freshman Cayla Obillo snagged a season-best eight boards against Jackson State while contributing nine points.

Senior Jada Hargrove recorded her 12th double-digit scoring performance of the season, dropping 12 points and grabbing four boards.

Jackson State (12-8,10-0 SWAC) notched six blocks on the afternoon, tied for the most blocks against Alcorn in conference play, including four by Marneisha Hamer.

Kaisah Lucky and Ameshya Williams led the home squad's offensive attack as each tallied 14 points. Lucky did most of her damage at the free-throw line, making 11-of-14 from the charity stripe. Williams was 7-for-11 (.636) from the floor and fell one board shy of a double-double.

Jackson State originally won the opening tip but Obillo's hustle play turned into a steal and an easy layup to open the ballgame for the purple and gold. The Lady Braves went ahead 6-5 at the 8:25 mark before nine unanswered and 16 of the next 18 points went to the blue and white (21-8). The purple and gold would outscore JSU six to four from there on out as the Lady Tigers were up 25-14 after one.

The second quarter saw a defensively driven scoring surge by the Lady Braves, using its full-court pressure to induce a few easy buckets and close the gap to 29-25 courtesy of a 11-4 rally. Turnovers plagued both teams for the remainder of the first half as they combined for nine over the final five minutes and 34 seconds while each side produced nine points to see the halftime score sit at 38-34 JSU.

Alcorn started the second half ice cold, missing its first six shot attempts to allow Jackson State to build its lead to 43-34. A 7-4 run by the purple and gold made the score 47-41 JSU during the media timeout. The Lady Tigers doubled up the Lady Braves over the final five minutes and change (10-5) as Coach Pruitt's club trailed 56-46 going into the final period.

The blue and white began to open the game up, widening its advantage to 67-51 at the halfway point of the fourth. The girls from Lorman slowly crawled back into the contest as it cut the deficit down to single digits with 2:48 remaining, 69-60. Coach Pruitt's crew would trim the lead to as low as seven twice but could not topple the Lady Tigers as Jackson State remained undefeated in SWAC play with a 76-66 win.

Alcorn travels to Grambling State on Monday evening to take on the Lady Tigers at 5:30 p.m. inside the Frederick C. Hobdy Assembly Center.
 
NOTES
- Alcorn lost its sixth consecutive matchup to the Lady Tigers as Jackson State improved to 53-43 in the all-time series.

- Despite holding a 23-8 advantage at one point, Jackson State edged out the Lady Braves in rebounds, 38-37.

- The purple and gold netted a negative turnover differential for just the fourth time this season, falling to 0-4 in those situations (20-19).
 
Quoting Alcorn head coach Courtney G. Pruitt
 
 Opening Statement
"I thought we fought hard, we had a good first half, we didn't start out in a hole, we didn't get in a drought but in the fourth quarter we just couldn't score enough points. I think we did a great job defensively, we got a lot of steals but in the end you've got to put up more points than the other team. We took 20 more shots than Jackson State we just got to find a way to put the ball in the hole but I really think that's our problem, I don't think its our defense, it's our ability to score. We're getting great looks out of our offense but we're just not scoring and making the shots that we need to make."
 
On the JSU post players being the biggest factors in the game:
"We did an excellent job of stopping the bleeding in the first quarter when [Ameshya] Williams got going we were trying to go big-for-big but we just couldn't get it done that way so we went to playing small ball and we only let her score four more points the rest of the game. Our goal was to not let [Marneisha] Hamer have the big game she had on us the first time against us at Alcorn, we did an excellent job, they only outrebounded us by one. I think our biggest problem tonight was making the shots that we needed to make when we needed to make them. We went on runs, we did an excellent job of keeping them at bay, not allowing them to dig a deep hole and let them get way out in front, we just couldn't convert on those shots. The plays and opportunities that we had, we didn't capitalize on them in my opinion."
 
On hanging tough over the final three quarters:
"We did an excellent job in the second quarter of playing great basketball, outscoring them 20-13 and we were down only four at halftime. We didn't let the third quarter beat us, we maintained our stamina in the game but when the fourth quarter came down to it we just didn't score enough. We scored 20 and they scored 20 but we really needed those 11 points back from the first quarter. I think we did a good job of shooting free throws, 6-for-9 in that situation, we did a good job rebounding, we had 16 offensive boards, but we just got to score and be able to put the ball in the hole."
 
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