Monroe, La. - Little Rock outscored ULM 35-14 over the second and third quarters to pull away for a 57-38 win on Saturday afternoon at Fant-Ewing Coliseum, as the Trojans claimed a share of their third straight Sun Belt Conference championship and the Warhawks had their season come to an end.
ULM (10-19, 4-14 Sun Belt) trailed 12-11 at the end of the first quarter, but Little Rock (19-10, 15-3) scored the first eight points of the second quarter to open up a nine-point lead, and never led by less than eight points the rest of the way. The Trojans led 30-17 at halftime, and led by as much as 23 points in the fourth quarter.
"As I've been saying for the last five years, there's a reason they're consistently around that 20 win or more mark," head coach Jeff Dow said. "There's a reason they're always one of the top one or two teams in the league and winning Sun Belt regular season championships and conference tournaments and winning games in the NCAAs and what not. They're so good defensively. You try to do what you can on a daily basis to simulate how they're going to guard you and the physicality. They've got great athletes, they've got length, they're really disciplined. They make very few mistakes."
Dow said his team struggled to finish off possessions on the defensive end.
"In the first half, we were doing a good job at times, but then we were giving up an offensive rebound and just didn't finish the possession," Dow said.
The Warhawks honored their two seniors prior to the game, with Lauren Marker and Logan Oestreich each making one final start. Both players knocked down a 3-pointer in the loss.
Dow said the 2018-19 Warhawk team played tough, competitive basketball.
"The biggest thing you want to see is kids that buy in, and buy in on the defensive end in particular, and compete," Dow said. "They did do that. We got a little bit overwhelmed today. There were very few times where we weren't in it going into the second half and a lot of cases into the fourth quarter, recently last five minutes of the game. We should feel good about that. Of course we'd like to win more games."
The game also marks Dow's final game as head coach at ULM, after previously announcing he would not seek a contract extension.
"It was a very unique situation when I came on board five years ago," Dow said. "Their top four scorers all graduated. There was really just one or two kids who were part-time starters, so really a building from scratch type situation. This situation, obviously completely different with five returning starters, the nine top scorers are all coming back. Now the challenge is those kids have got to elevate their game, and obviously they're going to need to add a few pieces to provide a little more depth. I do think the foundation has been set for them to have some more success next year. I think with the maturity of the team, I think they will be able to do that."
Arsula Clark led ULM with eight points, while Lauren Fitch tallied seven. Ronjanae DeGray paced Little Rock with 24 points on 9-of-13 shooting and 6-of-6 free throws, while Kyra Collier added 16 points.
