Atlanta – Georgia State was red-hot from the field for the second straight game, topping 53 percent shooting as they defeated ULM Thursday night at GSU Sports Arena.

Coming off a season-high 60 percent shooting at rival Georgia Southern on Saturday, the Panthers (12-9 overall, 6-4 Sun Belt Conference) stayed hot early, hitting 70 percent of their first quarter shots and 58 percent in the first half.

Meanwhile, ULM (7-14, 1-9) struggled to 31 percent shooting on the game and turned the ball over 24 times.

"The offense wasn't great with the 24 turnovers and 31 percent from the field," head coach Jeff Dow said. "Defensively, it's not a coincidence in the third quarter we hold them to 11 points. I thought that was the best energy we played with throughout the game. We talked about even in some of our tough games in the past, both wins and losses, a lot of times there would be three pretty good quarters and maybe one bad quarter. Obviously, it was the other way around."

Georgia State took an early 7-2 lead, but five free throws, four from Arsula Clark and one from Jamie Means, tied the game at 7 midway through the first quarter. Georgia State scored 10 of the next 13 points to build a 10-point lead at the end of the first quarter, 17-7.

ULM closed the gap to eight in the third quarter on a layup by Amber Thompson to trail 20-12. But then the Panthers took control down the stretch of the half, building as much as an 18-point lead, going up 39-21 at halftime.

In the third quarter, GSU built the lead to 20, but ULM used a 7-0 run to close the quarter, featuring a 3-pointer and 3-point play from Whitney Goins to cut the deficit to 50-37. The Warhawks held the Panthers off the scoreboard for the final three-and-a-half minutes of the frame. GSU shot just 4-of-12 from the field in the quarter.

However, GSU responded early in the fourth quarter, scoring nine of the first 12 points to resume a 19-point lead at 59-40 with 7:27 left. GSU led by as much as 23 down the stretch before picking up the 68-46 win.

"Defensively, for them to shoot 70 percent in the first quarter, then they back it up with a 50 percent in the second quarter, and then we got after it in the third quarter, we hold them to 33 percent," Dow said. "Made it interesting there for a minute. And then some untimely turnovers led to some easy stuff at the other end for them. Then in the fourth quarter, they shoot 67 percent. It's not a good combination of not defending very well, not making shots and turning it over."

Dow pointed out the positive in the loss.

"The one thing we did well is we rebounded it, plus six and holding them to five o-boards," Dow said.

However, the Warhawks continued to struggle on the offensive end.

"We talked about this all week, obviously we knew what we were going to be facing," Dow said. "You try to get a ton of shots up, we try and get within certain set plays where do we anticipate the shots coming from. There was a lot of times we executed. We got the shot we wanted, it just didn't go in. Sometimes we had a great look at somebody and we threw it away."

Clark led ULM with 13 points and eight rebounds, making 7-of-10 free throw attempts.

"When you see somebody shoot 10 free throws, you know they're doing some stuff where they're battling, they're willing to take the hit, they're putting themselves in a position to get to the line," Dow said. "Combined with the fact that she got four offensive rebounds, eight rebounds total, is certainly indicative of how hard she was playing.

"We've got to have some more people step up. I thought Amber Thompson did some good things. She finished with 11 points and made some shots. Sheniqua Coatney I thought played better than maybe what her stat line would indicate. She was active and took some deflections, took a charge, had a couple of nice finishes. Got to get more people chipping in on a consistent basis. We got to try and learn from this and move on and be ready to play Saturday afternoon."

The Warhawks shot 15-of-49 from the field (30.6 percent), 4-of-20 from 3-point range (20.0 percent) and 12-of-19 from the line (63.2 percent). GSU finished 25-of-47 (53.2 percent), 6-of-17 from deep (35.3 percent) and 12-of-18 at the line (66.7 percent).

The Warhawks wrap up the road swing Saturday at Georgia Southern. Tip-off is at 1 p.m. (Central) at Hanner Fieldhouse in Statesboro. Links to live video, audio and stats are available at ULMWarhawks.com.