Monroe, La. - A 21-4 third quarter run by Texas State gave the Bobcats the lead as they pulled away for a 62-51 win over ULM Thursday night at Fant-Ewing Coliseum.
"It's one thing to not be able to score," head coach Jeff Dow said. "As we've been preaching all year long, whether you're a good team or have a sub-.500 record, regardless of what the case is, you got to find a way to buckle down and start getting stops. There's no reason to give up 21 points in just over six minutes of basketball."
ULM trailed 29-25 at halftime, and opened the second half on a 7-0 run to take a 32-29 lead on a traditional three-point play by Whitney Goins. After a Texas State free throw by Zandra Emanuel, Arsula Clark converted her own traditional three-point play to give ULM a five-point lead at 35-30 with 6:46 left in the third quarter. Texas State then outscored ULM 21-4 over the remainder of the period, including eight points with two three-pointers for Toshua Leavitt, to give the Bobcats a 51-39 lead going to the fourth quarter.
"The four is certainly not good," Dow said. "We're not missing on purpose, certainly. It's a little different game if that run is 13-4, not 21-4. Now you're not going into as big of a deficit, and you've still got them within a couple of possessions instead of being down 12 going to the fourth quarter."
ULM would get as close as six points in the fourth quarter on a steal and three-point play by Clark at 55-49 with 2:21 to go. But Texas State scored seven of the game's final nine points to win 62-51.
"To their credit, I thought our kids continued to scratch and claw in the fourth quarter and kept competing," Dow said. "(Texas State) have enough talent and they're not going to get completely unraveled. They've got some veteran guards in Brooke Holle and Toshua Leavitt. Leavitt with zero turnovers in 40 minutes certainly speaks to that."
ULM led 6-0 in the game's opening moments on back-to-back treys from Amber Thompson on the Warhawks' first two possessions of the game. Texas State tied the game at 10 on back-to-back threes from Leavitt, and led 14-12 after a quarter. The Bobcats led by as much as seven in the second quarter before ULM cut the deficit to 29-25 at halftime.
Lauren Fitch led ULM in scoring for the third straight game with 14 points. Dow credits Fitch's performance to practice leading up to Thursday's game.
"As good as she was tonight, you should have seen her the last two days of practice," Dow said. "Dominant. Just absolutely dominant. When we practice, we keep track of every competition that the kids are involved in. So they know their won-loss record at the end of the day. It's not a coincidence over the course of those two days Lauren Fitch was 12-1. And she was almost unguardable. So it's not a shock that she comes out and goes 6-of-10, the only one that we had over 50 percent from the field, makes both of her free throws, finishes tied for second in rebounding, then throws out three assists and only one turnover and two steals in 36 minutes."
Jamie Means had her first career double-figure scoring game with 11 points. Leavitt led Texas State with 16 points, while Jazza Johns and Bailey Holle had 14 points each.
Dow lamented some of the Warhawks' struggles.
"(Fitch) just didn't have much help," Dow said. "A lot of turnovers that didn't need to happen, some great looks at three that didn't drop, some 50-50 balls that we needed to come up with that we didn't come up with them, opportunities to take charges that we didn't. That's two games in a row we haven't taken a charge."
ULM shot 31.7 percent from the field (19-of-60), while connecting on 15.0 percent from three-point range (3-of-20) and finished a perfect 10-of-10 at the free throw line. Texas State shot 43.1 percent from the floor (25-of-58), 29.4 percent from three (5-of-17) and 7-of-11 at the line (63.6 percent). Both teams pulled in 34 rebounds. Brooke Holle had nine boards to pace the Bobcats while Thompson led ULM with six.
The Warhawks wrap up their three-game home stand on Saturday against UTA with tip-off at 2 p.m. at Fant-Ewing Coliseum. For tickets, call (318) 342-HAWK or visit ULMWarhawks.com. Links to live video, audio and stats are available at ULMWarhawks.com.
