Northwestern State Cruises Past Arkansas-Monticello
Northwestern State 86, Arkansas-Monticello 69
NATCHITOCHES, Texas ? Northwestern State was running on all cylinders offensively Friday night as five Lady Demons scored in double-figures in leading the team to an 86-69 win over Arkansas-Monticello.
NSU (7-5) snapped a two-game losing streak with the win and remained unbeaten at home on the season, improving to 6-0, in its biggest offensive output of the season.
“If I knew how we could do that every night (multiple double-figure scorers), we would do it,” head coach Jennifer Graf said. “Each player stepped it up tonight and did some things that they may not have done this season.”
Brooke Shepherd led the scoring attack with 16 points on 4 of 8 shooting, 4 for 7 from 3-point range. Courtney Shead and Demetria White each posted double-doubles with Shead scoring 12 points and 14 rebounds while White added 14 points and 10 assists. Shead also blocked five shots.
Britany Kinlaw added 13 points and five boards while Lyndzee Greene sank 11 points in addition to a team-high five steals and four assits.
“It was just a great job today offensively,” said Graf. “That trip at Ole Miss left a bad taste in our mouth. I told the girls we’ve got three of our next four games at home so they need to get into the gym and practice their shooting.
“Defensively, we did a lot better job with our rotation and rebounding. The key was keeping them (UAM) off the offensive boards and we did a good job of that.”
NSU, who was outrebounded 55-31 in a loss to Tennessee-Martin in its last outing, controlled the boards on Friday, outrebounding the Cotton Blossoms by a 41-30 count. That 30 included just nine offensive boards by UAM.
“We were doing things right tonight defensively,” Graf said. “We kept them off the offensive boards which was something we really wanted to do.”
The Lady Demons sank a season-best 52 percent from the field, connecting on 32 of 62 shots. They also drained 12 of 20 from long range for a season-high 60 percent.
Meanwhile, the defense held UAM to 11 points under its average of 80 points per game.
“We did some things differently in the second half than we did in the first,” said Graf. “There were several times we held them scoreless for a significant amount of time in the second half that let us get up big on them.”
After leading 38-37 at the half, UAM tied the game at 41-all on a layup by Erika Brown with 18:20 to play.
That started a stretch of 13 straight points scored by NSU over the next five minutes as it built a 54-41 lead.
The Cotton Blossoms trimmed the lead down to 57-48 at the 12:08 mark, but back-to-back 3-pointers from Shepherd and Greene ignited an 11-0 run to put NSU up 68-48.
Kinlaw gave the Lady Demons their largest lead of the night at 78-54 on a layup with 5:04 to play.
“Our goal was to get our shooting back and play aggressive on defense, and we did that tonight,” said Graf. “This will help build our confidence.”
The Lady Demons will next visit Arkansas-Pine Bluff at 7 on Monday before returning home on Saturday, Jan. 10, when they host Nicholls at 2 in the Southland Conference opener.