With the collective efforts of the Alabama State's women's basketball players, known as the big three (
Britney Wright,
Jasmine Peeples and
Daniele Ewert), ASU advances to the semifinals to play the winner of Grambling St. vs. Prairie View game Friday evening, March 11 at 6 p.m.
The Lady Hornets pushed passed rival team Alabama A&M Lady Bulldogs with a 88-72 finish. Wright led all scorers with 25 points, while Peeples had 20 points and 11 rebounds and Ewert added 15 hitting a perfect 13-for-13 at the free stripe.
"It was a tough challenge for us," said head coach
Freda Freeman-Jackson. "When playing a rivalry team and beating them three times, that's something real hard to do, but I think we did a real good job of it tonight. Although they got 72 points they weren't easy baskets. I think that we did a really good job of getting the ball into our horse's hands. Britney having 25 points and JP (
Jasmine Peeples) with 20 and 11 rebounds and
Daniele Ewert with 15 points that's a three headed monster that is hard to compete against."
AAMU opened up with a quick 17-8 lead in the first six minutes of the first half. Back-to-back turnovers began to be costly for the Lady Hornets as the Lady Bulldogs was able to take a slight 23-22 lead going into the half.
"We didn't play well in the first half of the game," said head coach
Freda Freeman-Jackson. "We didn't run our offense like we should have and turnovers caused us some problems, making us turn the ball over back –to-back they were able to go in the half with the lead."
Durriya Shields-Sampson scored nine points, while
Ashanti Spencer and
Kayla Tucker each had eight a piece. ASU was 37-45 from around free throw line shooting 82.2 percent. AAMU had 29 turnovers in the game and ASU took advantage scoring 29 points.
"I thought
Ashanti Spencer did a good job settling in, which she wasn't playing well in the first half," said Freeman-Jackson. She was getting a little frustrated once I settled her in I thought she started doing a good job. The same with Durriya once she got settled down she played a lot better. Collectively we played a whole lot better the second half. We caused AAMU to have 29 turnovers and that was a plus for us, especially with us only having 11."
The second half saw ASU coming out on a 9-0 run advancing their lead to at least 10 points. AAMU went on a run of its own clipping the Lady Hornets to a three point lead. Alabama State advanced their lead once again to at least 14 in the course of the last three minutes of the game. ASU closed out the game with 10 consecutive free throws by Ewert.
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