NASHVILLE – The Jacksonville State women's basketball team dropped a 61-49 road decision to Ohio Valley Conference leader Belmont on Saturday at the Curb Event Center in Nashville.
 
Trying to knock a first-place Belmont team (17-8, 12-2 OVC) off for the second time in three weeks, JSU (11-14, 7-7 OVC) was unable to grab control in the early going as it did in the first meeting. The Bruins raced out to a double-digit lead midway through the first and never wavered on its way to its ninth win in 10 games.
 
Junior Taylor Hawks led the Gamecocks with 12 points and eight rebounds. Altogether, 10 Gamecocks scored on the day.
 
Avenging its early loss to the Gamecocks, Belmont opened a 13-2 lead, which later stood at 20-8 in the early stages of the second quarter. Redshirt-freshman Karleigh Sledge etched the 2019-20 team into the JSU record books with her three-pointer in the second for the team's 168th on the season for a new program standard. JSU cut the deficit to seven, 20-13, before BU finished the first half on a 16-4 run.
 
Jax State trailed by as many as 25 with under four minutes to play in the third, when Winnie Kuimi's jumper sparked  the Gamecocks late rally. An old-fashion three-point-play by Hawks to start the scoring in the fourth made it a 49-31 game.
 
A few minutes later Jessie Day knocked down a triple to trim the margin to 52-41, and a pair of free throws from the Niceville, Florida, native, brought JSU within single digits for the first time since the opening minutes of the game. A jumper by Kiana Johnson would cut it to seven, but JSU was unable to maintain the late surge in the final three minutes falling by 11.