Lady Tigers Pull Away from Georgia Southern

The Georgia Southern women’s basketball team cut the lead down to two with less than three minutes remaining in the first half, but 20th-ranked Auburn eventually pulled away in the second half and won 71-45 Wednesday night (Nov. 19) at Hanner Fieldhouse.

“We felt like we did a pretty good job with our game plan, but they made us do different things that we weren’t ready to do,” said Lady Eagles head coach Rusty Cram. “They made us shoot the ball from way downtown, and we don’t want to shoot that many 3-pointers this year.”

Auburn (3-0) jumped out to a 6-0 lead to start the game, but Georgia Southern (2-1) cut the lead to one with 16:07 remaining. Jamie Navarro (Naples, Fla.) hit a three from the left wing and Carolyn Whitney (Duluth, Ga.) scored on a fast break layup to make the score 6-5.

Auburn led by as many as seven in the early going, but Brittney Nelson (Rochester, Mich.) cut the lead to three points with 7:59 remaining on a 3-pointer from the right wing.

“I thought we played with them for awhile, and our emotion helped us in the first half,” stated Cram.

Navarro nailed a shot from beyond the arc with 5:25 remaining to cut the Auburn lead back down to two points. The Lady Eagles kept the score close late into the first half. Ashley Melson (Newnan, Ga.) scored on a wide open layup in the paint to pull back within two points with less than three minutes remaining. However, the Tigers went on an 8-1 run to close out the half and that would be the closest Georgia Southern would get.

The Tigers led at halftime 36-27, but Georgia Southern held them to 40 percent shooting from the field in the first half.

Auburn opened up a 43-29 lead prior to the first media timeout. Alli Smalley scored five of the seven points during that period.

The Tigers shot 58 percent from the field in the second half (47.5 percent overall) while holding the Lady Eagles to 27 percent in the second half – 28 percent for the game. Georgia Southern finished just 5-of-24 from beyond the arc.

One bright spot defensively for the Lady Eagles was holding Auburn All-American DeWanna Bonner to 11 points. The senior guard came into the game averaging 27 on the season.

“We felt like we did a pretty good job of guarding her,” said Cram.

Jessica Geiger (Stone Mountain, Ga.) pulled down 10 rebounds to lead the Lady Eagles, however, the much taller Auburn squad held a 50-39 edge.

Melson led the Lady Eagles with 12 points. Navarro scored eight points, cleared away five rebounds and did not commit a turnover in 28 minutes of action.

“We did a good job of rebounding against a team that was much larger than us,” said Cram.

Smalley finished with a game-high 18 points for the Tigers. Chantel Hilliard scored 10 points off the bench.

Georgia Southern returns to action Saturday against UNC Asheville at 3:00 p.m.