Marshall Women’s Basketball (6-13, 0-6 C-USA) dropped another conference game Friday night against Middle Tennessee State University (12-8, 4-3 C-USA) at the Cam Henderson Center by a score of 73-57.

“You have to give credit to Middle Tennessee,” said Marshall head coach Tony Kemper. “They do a nice job of getting you out of your offense and they did that to us tonight. They put you in positions where you have to make good decisions when your stuff breaks down and we certainly didn’t do that enough.”

Marshall’s junior guard Shayna Gore led its offense as she registered a team-high 17 points and six rebounds. Senior forward Talequia Hamiliton added 14 points, shooting 100 percent (7-7) from the line to aid the Herd’s 93.8 (15-16) overall free-throw percentage. Sophomore guard Mychelle Johnson led the Herd in assists with four.

Ultimately, MTSU was too much for the Herd.

Blue Raiders’ freshman guard Anna Jones was the game’s high scorer with 21 points. She also registered six rebounds and three steals on the night. Senior guard Abbey Sissom added 18 points and Jess Louro had 11 for the Blue Raiders.

Middle Tennessee shot a season-high 13-24 (54.2 percent) shots from behind the arch, while shooting 26-48 (54.2 percent) from the field and 8-10 (80 percent) from the line.

“We tried to zone them and they shot it well,” Kemper said. “Credit to them. A couple times we just left their guards, and that certainly wasn’t what we wanted to do.”

Middle Tennessee also out-scored Marshall in points in the paint (20-10), points off turnovers (22-10), and points off the bench (27-13).

“Playing against Middle Tennessee, since I’ve been here, you have to have mental toughness just by the way they play defense,” Gore said. “They were in my face the whole night. Sometimes it was hard to get open, and sometimes I had to really work to get the ball. I worked for all I got today.”

“We need to get ready to have a better effort on Sunday,” Kemper said.

Marshall returns to the Cam Henderson Center Sunday at 1 p.m. against FIU (6-12, 3-2 C-USA).

Courtney Andrews can be contacted at [email protected]