BOONE, N.C. - Appalachian State University women's basketball (8-13, 5-7 SBC) used a team-centric performance to roll past ULM (9-12, 3-9 SBC),64-52, Saturday afternoon at the Holmes Center.
The Mountaineers displayed great ball movement for 40 minutes that led to 17 assists on 25 field goals (68 percent) while shooting 45.6 from the field. Over the previous two games, the Mountaineers have assisted on 34 of their 50 field goals.
Like Thursday's victory, Madi Story and KeKe Cooper provided the scoring punch combining for 30 points.Story scored a game-high 18 points on 6-for-15 shooting with four boards and three assists. Cooper notched her fourth double-double of the season with 12 points on another efficient performance going 6-for-8 from the floor and pulling down a game-high 10 rebounds.
Story and Cooper led nine different student-athletes that scored during the contest. Joi Jones stuffed the box score with seven points, five assists and four rebounds, and Kaila Craven came off the bench for seven points and a career-high five assists. Ashley Bassett-Smith came off the bench to chip in with six points on 3-for-5 shooting.
The Apps got contributions from everyone, including a second unit that outscored ULM's reserves, 20-2. Appalachian also controlled the paint outrebounding ULM, 41-30, and scoring 28 points in the paint to the Warhawks' 20.
Defensively, Appalachian played stingy defense, limiting the visitors to shoot 32 percent from the field while swatting away six shots, including two each from Bria Carter and Cooper.
Both teams traded 3-pointers to start the contest as the first five shots of the game came from outside the arc. Story hit a pair of trifectas to start the game for the Mountaineers. After ULM took its last of the contest with, 6-3, with 7:40 left in the first period before the Apps took over with an 8-0 run over the next 1:44 to take the lead for good.
Story's second trey of the game found by Jones started the spurt followed by a layup from Jasmine Ogunjimi and Jones hitting one from long distance to cap it off. Appalachian stayed on top of the Warhawks en route to taking an 18-10 lead going into the second period. Four of the seven-made field goals for the Mountaineers were from behind the arc while six of seven field goals were assisted on.
Appalachian also held ULM to just 3-for-23 shooting (23.1 percent) and 10 points.
The Mountaineers started to dominate going on a stretch where they went 6-for-7 and held the visitors to a 1-for-13 stretch after starting 3-for-6. Appalachian forced ULM to go on a three minute scoring drought that led to a 12-point lead, 26-14, after Cooper found Mia Marshall on a nice pass.
ULM got out of its shooting funk midway through the second period hitting five consecutive baskets that cut the lead to six, 28-22. But the Mountaineers prevented ULM from going on any type of run that would give the visiting team momentum. Appalachian scored four of the next five points with Marshall and Bassett-Smith hitting back-to-back layups to help the hosts go into the locker room with a nine-point lead, 32-23.
Appalachian held ULM to 32.1 percent from the field in the first half while nine student-athletes would score for the Black and Gold. The App State defense clamped down to force ULM to miss nine straight field goals, a stretch that started at the 3:52 mark of the second quarter as the Warhawks wouldn't hit their next field goal until 6:13 left in the third period.
Cooper found Story for a jumper to start the second half that gave the Mountaineers a double-digit lead, 34-23, and kept the lead by no more than eight points. With 4:49 left in the frame, Story found Craven in the Corner for a trey that gave the Mountaineers the double-digit lead, 40-29, for good.
App State pushed the lead to as much as 16, 50-34, at the end of the quarter once Bassett-Smith hit a jumper from the baseline. Appalachian was never threatened in the fourth quarter en route to the 12-point victory and season sweep over ULM. The win also gave App State a 2-0 start to the second half of conference play and matching the amount of wins in February.
The Apps will head to Texas next week for a matchup against Texas State on Thursday before heading to UT Arlington for a Saturday showdown.
Quotable
“Our team played with a sense of urgency on the defensive end and played unselfishly on offense. I'm proud of the fact that we put two games together with great effort and execution. This was another great team win!” - head coach Angel Elderkin
Tip-Ins
- The two wins over ULL and ULM is the first time App State finished the week 2-0 in conference.
- Story's double-digit scoring streak has increased to nine-straight games.
- Cooper's double-double was the 12th of her career.
- Appalachian is 4-0 all-time against ULM.
- All nine student-athletes that played were in the plus category in the plus/minus threshold
- Story led the team with plus-13.
- The Mountaineers averaged .914 points per possession while scoring on 42.9 percent of their possessions.
- Appalachian led for 37:10 of the game and trailed for just 22 seconds.
- Six different student-athletes recorded at least one assist.
- Cooper led one of three student-athletes with a PER of 21 while Story (15) and Jones (11) followed suit.
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