The UALR women’s basketball team spent most of Saturday afternoon trying to find some semblance of a rhythm while playing its first game in a week.
The Trojans finally found it thanks in large part to one of Taylor Gault’s most complete games, holding on for a 69-60 victory over Texas-Arlington at the Jack Stephens Center in Little Rock.
There was nothing easy about UALR’s fourth consecutive victory.
Laila Suleiman made four three-pointers and Texas-Arlington (3-22, 2-12), the Sun Belt Conference’s lowest-scoring team other than UALR, made five three-pointers in the first half while building a 27-16 lead.
The Mavericks, who have lost four consecutive games and 11 of their past 13, led 37-30 at halftime and for the first 10 minutes of the second half.
Kiera Clark’s three-point play gave UALR (14-10, 9-5) a 48-45 lead with 9:26 left and came in the middle of a 14-2 run that gave the Trojans the lead for good.
“A lot of times you lose those games,” UALR Coach Joe Foley said. “But when you play bad and you still win, then you’ve got to give credit to at least [we] made some adjustments.”
Gault kept UALR in the game when it was struggling to find a spark. The junior guard scored 29 points, four off her season high, on 8-of-20 shooting from the floor and had 9 of UALR’s first 11 points in the second half.
“When I realized that we weren’t getting points on the board and we weren’t getting stops, that’s when I thought I needed to start driving, get to the free-throw line and make something happen,” Gault said
More important were Gault’s career-high six steals and four assists, which tied a season high. At one point in the second half, she went crashing into the court-side seats to save a ball from going out of bounds, and it turned into a layup by Taylor Ford that put UALR ahead 55-47 with 5:14 left.
“When she gets everybody involved, we feed off that,” said Kiera Clark, who added 13 points and had seven rebounds.
“It helps our offense a lot, and it brings that intensity and energy that we need.”
Foley blamed a week between games for the sluggish start.
UALR won consecutive road games for the first time this season with victories at Louisiana-Lafayette and Louisiana-Monroe last week, but Foley said the week off led to sluggish practices leading up to Saturday’s game.
Those performances carried over when the Trojans let Suleiman, a 36.5 percent three-point shooter, loose for four three-pointers and let the Mavericks - who came in averaging just 59.5 points per - score 37 points in the first half.
“There’s not a lot of concentration there when you know that’s the only kid you’ve got that’s really shooting threes and they let her shoot four of them,” Foley said.
Gault guarded Suleiman for much of the second half, and the senior made only one three the rest of the way while finishing with 18 points.
Shanity James added 10 points and the Trojans, who finished shooting 46.9 percent and pulled into a three-way tie with Western Kentucky and Texas State for second place in the league standings. They trail Arkansas State by 2 1/2 games, with a game against the Red Wolves looming March 1 at the Jack Stephens Center.
Foley isn’t as concerned about the regular-season title as he is making sure that his team on track for the conference tournament, whose winner is assured a spot in the NCAA Tournament.
“Every team wants to win the conference, but in our league it’s most important to win the conference tournament,” Foley said.
“I think everybody knows that.”
WEDNESDAY’S GAMES Arkansas State 73, Texas-Arlington 47 Georgia State 85, La.-Monroe 77 Texas State 63, South Alabama 61 La.-Lafayette 62, Troy 57
SATURDAY’S GAMES Arkansas State 74, Texas State 55 UALR 69, Texas-Arlington 60 W. Kentucky 92, La.-Monroe 63 Troy 86, South Alabama 76 La.-Lafayette 67, Georgia State 63
Sports, Pages 32 on 02/23/2014