The Arkansas State women picked up their first road victory of the season by defeating Kent State 59-44 on Wednesday night at the M.A.C. Center in Kent, Ohio.
Junior guard Brittney Gill scored a career-high 14 points and grabbed five rebounds to lead the Red Wolves (4-4). Senior guard Hanna Qedan added 11 points, while junior guard Aundrea Gamble had nine points. Arkansas State also got 29 points from its bench, led by junior Amanda Lawson's eight and junior Jessica Flanery's seven as the Red Wolves pulled away midway through the first half and never relinquished the lead.
Arkansas trailed by nine twice in the first half after the Golden Flashes (1-8) opened with a 9-0 run and then held a 15-6 advantage with 13:29 to go in the first half, but the Red Wolves took over from there.
Flanery sparked a 10-0 run for the Red Wolves with a three-pointer from the right corner and Qedan gave the Red Wolves their first lead at 15-14 with a pull-up jumper with 10:09 in the half. Kent State regained the lead at 19-17, but the Red Wolves proceeded to close the half on a 13-2 run to take a 30-21 advantage into the break.
The Golden Flashes had just one field goal over the final 8:56 and were outscored 24-6 over the final 13:29. Kent State shot 33.4 percent (9 of 26) from the field in the first half.
"The praise starts with the defense because after they got out to a 9-0 run, we held them to 35 points over the last 36 minutes or so and that is what allowed us to get back in this game," ASU Coach Brian Boyer said. "We got back in this game because of our defensive stops and we had a few shots roll out to start the game, but this game was won at the defensive end from our standpoint."
Gill was active defensively and finished with two steals, but was the cause of several more as the Red Wolves forced the Golden Flashes into 27 turnovers. Qedan added a career best four steals to aid the Red Wolves in tying a team season-high with 14 steals.
Kent State went on a small run to start the second half to get within 35-29 after a layup by CiCi Shannon with 13:36 to play. Arkansas State quickly pushed the advantage back to 14 points with an 8-0 run. The Golden Flashes then went scoreless for almost seven minutes, which allowed ASU to pull away late.
"This was one another one of those teams, like Chattanooga, that forced us to defend for the entire shot clock and really play solid defense," Boyer said. "I thought we played really good defense and forced them to do that as well and we were able to get a lot of people involved tonight and that makes me feel real good."
A-State shot 41.7 percent (25 of 60) from the field and hit 6 of 21 three-pointers (28.6 percent).
Sports on 12/18/2014