LeTourneau University – Sports

 

LeTourneau Women’s Basketball Drops 65-62 Contest At Centenary

SHREVEPORT, La. – Scoring their second-most points of the season, the LeTourneau University women’s basketball team battled through six ties and seven lead changes before coming up short in a 65-52 road loss to Centenary College at the Gold Dome on Saturday, December 15.

LETU enters the Christmas break with a mark of 2-9 overall following the defeat while the Ladies improved to 2-6 overall.

How It Happened:

The back-and-forth pace of the game would be seen right away as the teams would trade the first 11 points of the game to give the YellowJackets a 6-5 lead 2:30 into the game.

Four straight points for Centenary would allow the Ladies to reclaim the lead at 9-6, but Sha’Donnaver Young would hit the first of three first-quarter triples for LeTourneau to knot the game at 9-9.

With LETU holding a 15-13 lead with 3:24 left in the first quarter, Olivia Eweni and Young would combine to score four of the next six points to give LeTourneau their largest lead of the opening period before allowing Centenary to use a 7-0 run to end the quarter and take a 20-19 lead.

Things would continue to stay nip-and-tuck throughout most of the second quarter as neither team would lead by more than four through the first five minutes of the quarter.

A layup for Centenary would tie things at 30-30 with 4:01 left until halftime when the YellowJackets would score seven of the next nine points to take a 37-32 lead with 97 seconds left before intermission.

Only one more bucket would be scored in the first half as Centenary would connect on a three to close the gap once more to allow LeTourneau to hold a slim two-point halftime lead.

A 6-2 Centenary run to open the third quarter allowed the Ladies to take a 41-39 lead as the pace would slow down slightly from what was seen in the first half.

LETU would manage to battle back and tie the game at 43-43 following a jump shot from Alexandria Thorne, but it would once again be Centenary going on a run by scoring the next eight points in a span of 1:29 to go up 51-43 with 3:38 remaining in the third.
Refusing to give up, LETU would score seven straight points to close out the period to trail by just a single at 51-50 heading to the fourth as Claudia Moonsammy would close out the quarter with a layup in the final seconds.

Carrying their run over into the fourth quarter, the YellowJackets would use an Eweni layup and Jaila Leaven triple to go back up four at 55-51 before trading three-point baskets with the Ladies.

Savannah Doty for Centenary would then hit her second consecutive triple to pull the Ladies within one at 58-57 before forcing an LETU timeout off a layup after reclaiming the lead once again at 59-58.

The final three-plus minutes of the game would wind up becoming a free-throw shooting contest as eight of the last 10 points scored in the game would come at the charity stripe as Centenary would be the more efficient team at the line and hang on for the victory.

Key Stats:

LeTourneau would be unable to overcome 34 points in the paint and 15 second-chance points by Centenary despite outscoring the Ladies 20-4 in points off turnovers.

First-half shooting would be the better of the two for the YellowJackets as LETU would hit 14-of-33 (42.4 percent) of their shots from the field in the opening 20 minutes before cooling off in the second half to finish the game 23-for-66 (34.8 percent) from the floor. Centenary would post similar numbers while faring slightly better by posting a 39.3 percent (22-for-56) shooting percentage.

Three starters for LeTourneau would wind up in double-figures led by a team-high 14 points from Leaven. Eweni would add 12 and Thorne pitched in 10 as a trio of YellowJackets (Young, Chauntel Acosta, and Moonsammy) all scored eight each.

What’s Next?

LeTourneau will return home to open post-Christmas play following two weeks off to take on Millsaps University in their non-conference finale at home on Saturday, December 29 at 1:00 p.m. Millsaps is 7-1 overall and will play two more games at Belhaven and against MacMurray College before taking on LETU. LeTourneau and the Majors played each other earlier this season in Jackson, Miss. with Millsaps earning a 69-51 victory on November 25.

Matt Kinney
Sports Information Director
Office: 903-233-3735
Cell: 903-736-7669
[email protected]
www.letuathletics.com