The Lady Lions basketball team fought to remain in the lead in an away game against the University of New Orleans (UNO) (1-6) on Thursday night, a game that saw seven ties and six lead changes occur within the first 20 minutes of play. Ultimately, the Lady Lions basketball team secured their second win on the road, bringing them to 4-2 in the season so far.
“Anytime we can get a win on the road, it’s a good win, and it’s a good opportunity to see what our Southland Conference opponents look like,” said head coach Lori Davis Jones. “They’ve [UNO] already played a couple of our league opponents, so it’s a good measure to see how they match up.”
Southeastern used a 14-4 run just before the half to secure the lead at 38-34. The Lady Lions returned from the half with a 7-0 run, but UNO made a 9-0 run to close the gap to 45-43 with 13:48 remaining in the game.
Southeastern managed to maintain the lead for the remainder of the game, but the UNO team fought hard in their attempt to catch up. In the end, the Lady Lions pushed their lead to the double digits, and UNO could not manage to decrease it by the final buzzer. The final score was 76-64.
“We had 18 offensive rebounds, and we handed UNO only 7 offensive rebounds,” said Jones. “We got a lot of forwards, 44-27 in our favor, and overall I feel like the best thing that was going for us tonight is we were scoring the ball and we were shooting really well.”
The Lady Lions hit 8-for-15 from behind the arc on the way to the win and had four plays with double figures.
Sophomore guard Symone Miller lead the team with 14 points against UNO. Others in double figures were sophomore guard Elizabeth Styles with 13, junior guard Jameika Hoskins with 12 and freshman guard Erica Hernandez with 11 points.
“(Junior forward) Aja (Gibson) was one point off of a double double,” said Jones about Gibson’s nine points and season-high 11 rebounds. “We shot 53 percent from the 3-point line and 83 percent from the free throw line. We shot the ball really well tonight offensively. That was good. Defensively, though, we didn’t do a great job, so we’ve got to work on the defensive half of the court.”
The women’s basketball team will have a break from games for finals week, but will have a few individual practices to prepare for their next road game, when they will face Florida A&M in Tallahassee, Fla., on Saturday at 5 p.m.
Saturday’s away game will be broadcast live on KSLU-FM 90.9 or can be viewed at www.lionsports.net.