Herd loses 74-48, drops third straight
“We rolled the dice, took our chance and crapped out.” -Head coach Matt Daniel
More stories from Adam Polsky
The Marshall University women’s basketball team lost to Louisiana Tech University 68-67 Saturday. The Thundering Herd erased an eight point deficit to tie the game in the final seconds, but a free throw by LA Tech’s Kelia Shelton with 0.8 seconds left in the game sealed the Herd’s fate.
Marshall University’s women’s basketball team dropped its third straight contest in a 74-48 loss to Middle Tennessee State University Thursday in the Cam Henderson Center.
The game marked the first trip to Huntington for the Blue Raiders. MTSU is in its second year as a member of C-USA, but is already on its way to consecutive conference titles with an 11-2 in conference record heading into this matchup.
Middle Tennessee is led by senior forward Cheyenne Parker who ranks first in the nation in offensive rebounds averaging five per game. Parker, along with sophomore guard Tamara Jones, make up the second best scoring tandem in the nation, averaging a combined 39.7 points per game.
Parker would not play a major factor in the outcome, however, as she was plagued with foul trouble for most of the first half. She did not return in the second half after the game was out of reach. Despite playing only 14 minutes, Parker was able finish with 10 rebounds.
Thundering Herd head coach Matt Daniel said his team’s game plan was to make Parker a non-factor but, in doing so, it opened up opportunities for other players to beat them.
“When they’re that good, you’re going to have to give up something,” Daniel said. “We rolled the dice, took our chance and crapped out.”
The Blue Raiders were paced by junior guard Brea Edwards who scored a new career-high of 23 points and finished 7-8 from three point range. Jones also contributed 22 points and has now poured in at least 20 points in 14 out of her last 18 games.
The Herd ended up turning the ball over 15 times in the contest, which was the same number as field goals and free throws made for the team.
Senior forward Leah Scott dismissed the idea that the weather negatively affected her team’s performance.
“I feel like we could have been more focused since we didn’t have as much to worry about with school (being) cancelled,” Scott said.
MTSU rose to 18-6 (12-2) with the victory and Marshall stumbled to 14-10 (6-7) with the defeat.
The Thundering Herd will have to bounce back quickly as it hosts University of Alabama at Birmingham Saturday in the Cam Henderson Center.
Adam Polsky can be contacted at [email protected].
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