Valiant Jax State Effort Falls Short at Tennessee State - Jacksonville State University Athletics

Wednesday, January 23

Nashville, TN

7 p.m.

Jax State

(0-20, 0-8OVC)

Tennessee State

(7-10, 3-3OVC)

Team	1	2	F
Jacksonville State	32	35	67
Tennessee State	39	37	76

Valiant Jax State Effort Falls Short at Tennessee State Image

1/23/2013 9:06:00 PM | Women's Basketball

Box Score

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – A valiant effort by the Jacksonville State women's basketball team fell just short in a 76-67 loss to Tennessee State on Wednesday evening at the Gentry Center on the TSU campus.

With the game down to one possession under a minute at 70-67, the Lady Tigers capped off the win by scoring the game's last six points to move to 7-10 on the season and 3-3 in Ohio Valley Conference play. The Gamecocks dropped their 20th game of the season and fell to 0-8 in league games.

The game was within Jax State's reach from the tip as TSU held a pair of 11-point leads one in each half. The Lady Tigers extended the lead out to 11 points in the second half on a Simone Hopes' basket with 16:03 left in the game. From that point on, the TSU lead was in single digits as the Gamecocks clawed their way back to within a one-possession game with 1:23 left on the clock after a Danielle Vaughn bucket. That would be as close JSU would get as TSU closed out the game on a Hopes' bucket on the next trip down the floor and a pair of free throws by Jasmin Shuler.

Hopes, who was limited to a pair of points in the first meeting between the two programs on Jan. 5 in Jacksonville, finished with a career high 24 points, scoring 14 of those points in the second half. She also pulled down ten rebounds for a double-double night. TSU's Kessi Hess, who bagged 22 points against Jax State in the first meeting on Jan. 5, scored 11 of her final 18 points in the first half. Chelsea Hudson came off the Lady Tiger bench to add 11 points, along with Shuler.

A pair of Gamecocks came off the bench to post team-high scoring honors. Marikate Gardler, who had 22 points against the same squad in the contest at Pete Mathews Coliseum, rallied the Jax State offense with 16 points in 25 minutes of action after missing Saturday's contest with Eastern Kentucky. The Springfield, Pa.-native finished the night 5-of-8 from the field along with an assist, steal and a block. Gardler has now scored in double digits in four of the eight OVC games.

Freshman Destany McLin matched her career high with 11 points off the bench in just 12 minutes of floor action. She now has three double digit outings this season.

Gardler and McLin aided JSU's 50 percent shooting night as it hit 28-of-55 from the field, including a 53 percent mark in the second half. TSU forced 27 Gamecock turnovers and turned them into 30 points on the offensive end of the floor.
Senior Amanda McCarthy and sophomore Candace Morton both finished with nine points, while Vaughn and Miranda Cantrell each added six points.

The first half featured eight ties and eight lead changes, including JSU's largest lead of two points at the 16:36 mark. The Lady Tigers used a 10-2 run over a three-minute span in the first half to open their largest lead of the half at 11 points, 37-26, with just 2:38 left in the period. The Gamecocks would trim the lead down to 37-30 nearing the end of the half before TSU took that same margin into the halftime break at 39-32. JSU, hampered by foul trouble in the first half, was whistled for 14 team fouls, which turned into a 10-for-17 half for TSU at the free throw line.

The Gamecocks return to action on Saturday, Jan. 26 as they host the Racers of Murray State in a 2 p.m. contest at Pete Mathews Coliseum. The contest is the first of three consecutive home games for Jax State.