Dave Woodman, the Jack Stephens Center's public address announcer for women's basketball games, began his announcement prematurely.
UALR sophomore guard Terrion Moore had just deflected an errant Arkansas State pass and gathered the loose ball she created. Before she completed a layup on the other end with no defenders nearby, Woodman began bellowing her name before the shot left her hand.
Woodman was confident Moore was not going to miss.
Throughout the Trojans' 68-55 victory Saturday against Arkansas State University in Little Rock, Moore's misses were infrequent. This was the best offensive performance of her career.
"She had a heck of a ballgame," UALR Coach Joe Foley said. "There's no doubt about that."
Moore finished with a career-high 20 points on 8 of 10 field goals. She also had 4 assists, 4 rebounds and 3 steals to help move the Trojans to 8-1 in the Sun Belt, the conference's best record.
Moore was moved out of UALR's starting lineup one week ago and posted a then-career-high 17 points off the bench in UALR's 74-59 on Jan. 26 at Appalachian State, the Trojans' most recent game prior to Saturday.
"She had a real good one when we played at [Appalachian] State," Foley said. "She had a heck of a game there. That's two back-to-back games where she's played really well."
Behind nine first-quarter points from Moore, UALR zapped the Red Wolves for a 20-15 lead in the first 10 minutes.
The Trojans (12-8, 8-1) opened the second quarter with a 9-2 run as Moore connected on three jumpers and a free throw during the burst.
Moore had 16 points with 4:19 left in the first half.
"Terrion was creating for herself mostly," Foley said. "She's a guard. She's got the ball in her hands. She was creating a lot of things with the ball in her hands in the first half."
Moore did not score again in the first half, which UALR led 33-20 after it held the Red Wolves (8-12, 3-6) to five points in the second quarter.
"Obviously, credit goes to Little Rock, they are so good defensively," Arkansas State Coach Brian Boyer said. "We had too many just scoreless stretches where we're competing hard, but it's not even fun when you can't score."
After winning the third quarter 21-17, UALR led by as many as 19 points with 9:26 remaining in the fourth quarter.
Then the Trojans' dominance stopped.
They committed seven turnovers in five-plus minutes of the fourth quarter and went without a field goal for more than four minutes.
After a layup from senior forward Raeyana DeGray -- who had a season-high 16 points -- with 5:19 remaining in the fourth, UALR did not score another field goal until 14 seconds remained.
Arkansas State slashed UALR's lead to 60-53 after freshman point guard Jireh Washington, who had an ASU-high 14 points, made a layup with 2:12 remaining. The Red Wolves then started fouling.
UALR junior guards Sydney Chastain and Kyra Collier each made 2 of 2 from the free-throw line, and Moore put the finishing touches on her career game with two more free throws and a basket with 14 seconds left.
"As a team, for them, I think they did a good job coming at us," Moore said. "But I think we held our ground."
Sports on 02/03/2019