COOKEVILLE, Tenn. – Jacksonville State's women's basketball team never trailed on the road at Tennessee Tech on Thursday on its way to a big 66-50 victory to snap a two-game slide.
The Gamecocks (11-13, 7-6 Ohio Valley Conference) moved another step closer to securing its spot in next month's OVC Tournament in Evansville, Ind., by knocking off the fourth-place team in the league standings. TTU (16-8, 9-4 OVC) fell for the fourth time in five games after opening conference play with an 8-0 record.
Graduate student
Destiney Elliott led a trio of Gamecocks in double figures with 22 points. Juniors
Taylor Hawks and
Kiana Johnson, who returned to the starting lineup, finished with 17 and 14, respectively. The upperclassmen were a combined 21-of-40 (53%) from the field, while JSU shot 46-percentage overall for its best shooting game of the year against a Division I opponent.
Hawks, Elliott and Johnson deliver back-to-back-to-back layups to open the game and give a sign of what was to come the rest of the day. The Golden Eagles quickly called timeout down 6-0, but never recovered as JSU led wire-to-wire. The inside game became pivotal for Jax State who outscored TTU 36-10 in the paint.
The Gamecock defense limited TTU to just five first-quarter points for the fewest points allowed in any quarter this season. Starting the second stanza with a 15-5 edge, JSU's lead was trimmed to four after Tech opened the quarter with a pair of triples and the margin remained intact until the halftime break. JSU used a 7-0 run to lead 24-13, before TTU answered with seven straight of their own for the 24-20 intermission.
A jumper by
Jessie Day got the scoring going in the third period. Elliott hit JSU's first deep ball of the game midway through the quarter to extend the lead back to double-digits at 33-23, where it would remain the rest of the way. The three-ball was one pf two for the Gamecocks on the day as the team matched the 2017-18 club for the program record with 167 single-season treys.
JSU led 45-30 entering the fourth quarter and fended off a 5-0 Tech run to start the period to bounce back with fastbreak buckets by Hawks and Johnson to make it a 60-40 lead with under five minutes to play. TTU tried to rally late but JSU converted 14 of its 16 free throws on the day to maintain control throughout.
JSU heads a short ways down the road to Nashville on Saturday to meet the Bruins of Belmont at the Curb Event Center. The Bruins are 10-2 in the league prior to Thursday's pending results. JSU handed BU one of its losses just two weeks ago in Jacksonville, 60-41.
