With a season high for forced turnovers, Marshall Women’s Basketball was able to score its first road victory, 71-65, this season against the Georgia Southern Eagles on Saturday, Feb. 1.
“Our team has been incredibly resilient this whole year,” head coach Juli Fulks said. “We had a great start, and then, kind of similar to the other night, we had a run of turnovers that put us back in a hole.”
“We immediately found ourselves in some really unique lineups right out the gate because we lost three of our bottom on defense and part of the offensive,” Fulks said.
Marshall and Georgia Southern had similar first halves, with the Eagles outscoring the Herd 17-13 in the first quarter, and Marshall bouncing back in the second scoring 17 to Georgia Southern’s 12, giving Marshall the edge 30-29.
In the third, Marshall and Georgia Southern again had an even quarter, with both teams scoring 20 points.
However, the fourth is when the Herd finally broke through and started to outscore the Eagles. Marshall scored nine unanswered points to start the fourth.
Even though the Herd lost a little momentum in the second half of the fourth, the Eagles were not able to come back, and Marshall was able to keep their lead for their second Sun Belt Conference win.
“We went offense-defense the entire second half and had a group that could really go all-in on defense and really keep the tempo up
and got a lot of steals,” Fulks said. “We have an entire team that can defend, but I thought after three games and the things that were going on, we really wanted to pressure them and then find ways to keep everybody rested. So, I give our team a lot of credit because
they were willing to push through and find a way to contribute.”
CC Mays led the Herd in scoring with a career high 25 points, and Peyton Ilderton also had a career high 10-point game. Ultimately, the season high of 32 forced turnovers sealed the game for the Herd.
“Honestly, I don’t even know how you can get to 65 points with 32 turnovers, but you’re certainly not going to score enough points to win,” Georgia Southern head coach Hana Haden said. “The turnovers were pretty spread out, and they were just kind of contagious. It’s my job to find out how we can take better care of the ball and how we can handle the press better.”
The Herd looks to ride this momentum Wednesday, Feb. 5, against the Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns. The away game will start at 7 p.m.
Nate Harrah can be contacted at [email protected]
