Coming off a 20-point road victory Thursday night at Louisiana-Monroe, the University of Arkansas at Little Rock women's basketball team had less than a 48-hour turnaround before Saturday's meeting against Appalachian State.
The visiting Mountaineers, contrarily, entered on a full week of rest. This happens during the conference season.
A well-prepared Appalachian State team did everything it could to make life uncomfortable for the Trojans on Saturday afternoon, but UALR surged in the third quarter and put the game away at the free-throw line late for a 68-63 victory at the Jack Stephens Center in Little Rock.
The Trojans (8-11, 6-2 Sun Belt Conference) have won five of their past six games, and they moved to 13-0 all-time against Appalachian State.
"I knew with [Appalachian State] having a week off, we'd see something we haven't seen," said UALR Coach Joe Foley, who sits three victories shy of 800 for his career. "When you don't have a couple of days [of practice], you can't go over a whole lot."
Foley said he anticipated Appalachian State (4-14, 1-6) likely would stick with a 1-2-2 zone. That's how the Mountaineers played UALR in their previous meeting, which came in last year's Sun Belt Conference tournament semifinals in New Orleans.
Instead, Appalachian State threw UALR for a loop when it opted for a 2-3 zone with trapping guards for most of the game.
"I guessed wrong ... so it took us a little while to adapt," Foley said. "You got one day of preparation, you really can't get on the floor that long.
"I figured it'd be some kind of zone, so we did a lot of work on the other kind, and then we go against the trap and we hadn't seen that since way back, and so our kids kind of forgot."
It showed in the first half as Appalachian State took a 12-10 lead at the end of the first quarter before leading 26-24 at halftime.
The Trojans had a major scare late in the opening period when senior guard Sydney Chastain -- fresh off a career-high 17 points Thursday -- went down with an apparent ankle injury and had to be helped off the floor. But her exit was brief.
She returned early in the second quarter and gutted it out while clearly limping and grimacing. She finished with 7 points and 3 rebounds in 37 minutes.
"She showed a lot of guts," Foley said. "She was in pain, I know that."
UALR, which finished shooting 51%, started to figure out Appalachian State's defense midway through the third quarter.
After the Mountaineers took a 35-28 lead -- their largest of the game -- with 6:34 remaining in the period, junior forward Teal Battle sparked what turned into a 16-2 UALR run when she scored on a layup.
Battle completed a three-point play at the 4:08 mark to trim Appalachian State's lead to 37-35, then junior guard Tori Lasker drilled a three-pointer from the left wing to put the Trojans ahead.
Freshman forward Alayzha Knapp scored in transition, senior guard Kyra Collier hit a short jumper, and Battle scored on a putback to extend UALR's lead to 44-37 with 1:22 left in the quarter. Collier notched her second double-double of the season with 17 points and 10 rebounds.
"When you get the feel for it and the atmosphere is just there and everyone's making good passes, scoring, I mean ... it's all there," said Battle, who registered a game-high and career-high 25 points to go with nine rebounds. "We just have to slow down and take our time and just listen to Coach Foley."
Appalachian State guard Ashley Polacek knocked down a three in the final minute of the third to make it a four-point game heading into the final period. Polacek led the Mountaineers with 21 points, and forward Lainey Gosnell added 19 points and 6 rebounds.
Battle scored the Trojans' first seven points of the fourth quarter to steady UALR at 51-43 with 7:17 to play. Minutes later, Chastain drilled a three to put UALR ahead 54-46 with 4:10 left, but Gosnell answered with one of her own to cut the lead to five. Both teams went scoreless for the next two minutes before a layup by junior forward Krystan Vornes put UALR up seven with 1:37 left.
Over the final 64 seconds, the Trojans iced the game by hitting 12 of 12 from the foul line.
Sports on 01/26/2020