JONESBORO, Ark. (11/1/16) – Led by five players scoring in double figures, the Arkansas State women's basketball team outscored Arkansas-Monticello all four periods to claim a 73-55 exhibition victory over the Cotton Blossoms Tuesday night at the Convocation Center.
The Red Wolves won their 23rd consecutive exhibition game and has one more remaining before opening their regular season Nov. 11 at Oklahoma State. A-State used 14 players, including eight true freshmen, and nine of them scored as it picked up a double-figure win for the 17th time over its last 20 exhibition outings.
Three of Arkansas State's starting five players reached double figures, including senior guard Dominque Oliver with a game-high 15 points. Junior forward Lauren Bradshaw added 10 points and narrowly missed a double-double with nine rebounds, which tied freshman forward Tahlon Hopkins for the most on the squad.
“Like any exhibition there was a lot of good and a lot bad. It is a good starting point for us,” A-State head coach Brian Boyer said. “I'm pleased as whole and thought we did a lot of good things, but obviously the glaring stat that cannot continue is the 25 turnovers. I understand why it happened, but that's something that just can't happen and that's the one glaring stat that we have to resolve. Other than that I was pleased with what I saw.”
Arkansas State never trailed, but saw the score tied 8-8 almost five minutes into the game before going on an 11-2 run to take a 19-10 advantage with 1:27 remaining in the opening period. Despite a tightly contested second period that saw the Red Wolves outscore the Cotton Blossoms just 11-9, A-State took a 32-19 lead into the break.
Starting the second half with a 7-0 run, the Red Wolves went ahead 39-19 and later led 41-21 with 7:46 left in the third period to match their largest lead of the game at 20 points. UAM outscored A-State 18-13 the remainder of the period to pull back within 15 points, and it eventually cut the Red Wolves advantage to 60-49 with 5:10 remaining in the game, but wouldn't get any closer as the home team responded with 13-4 run to go back up by 20 points.
“The effort and intensity was there tonight,” Boyer said. “There were times we went really hard and were out of control and other times we went and were in control and we just have to learn to be in control and play hard all the time. I was happy with effort and speed, we just need to learn and work toward being better with it.”
The Red Wolves finished with a 40.6 shooting percentage in comparison to UAM's 33.8 mark and outrebounded the Cotton Blossoms 53-38. A-State also took advantage of 18 offensive rebounds, including five by Bradshaw, to score 19 second-chance points.
Like Bradshaw, Hopkins narrowly missed a double-double with 13 points to go along with her nine rebounds. Junior guard Akasha Westbrook added 13 points for the Red Wolves and freshman guard Jada Ford was responsible for 11 of the A-State bench's 30 points.
A-State's second exhibition game will be played Sunday, Nov. 6, against Harding at 2 p.m. at the Convocation Center.
For the latest on the A-State women's basketball log onto the team's Facebook page at Facebook.com/RedWolvesWBB, or follow them on Twitter @AStateWB and on Instagram at “AStateWBB.”
