Boxscore

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. - No. 3 ranked Tennessee (3-0) simply had too much size and too much depth for No. 10 Louisiana Tech (3-1) as the Lady Vols downed the Lady Techsters 85-65 before 11,804 at Thompson-Boling Arena Sunday afternoon.

When Tennessee wasn't hurting Tech inside with 6-foot-2-inch Shyra Ely (17 points, 11 rebounds) and the 6-foot-5-inch twin towers of Ashley Robinson (5 points, 4 rebounds, 4 blocks) and Tye'sha Fluker (6 points, 4 rebounds, 3 blocks), it was knocking down 7 of 14 three pointers from the outside.

The combination was simply too much for Tech to overcome.

"I thought we played well in the first half despite falling behind early," said Tech head coach Kurt Budke. "We can take a lot of positives from this game and learn from it. They simply wore us down in the second half."

Early on it didn't look like it was going to be a contest as Tennessee jumped out to a 12-2 lead at the 17:03 mark on back to back three-pointers by Zolman. However, the Lady Techsters responded, outscoring UT 24-8 over the next nine minutes to grab a 26-20 advantage.

Sparked by the play of Lakiste Barkus off the bench, Tech hit 11 of its first 19 field goals in building the six-point lead. Barkus scored 10 points during the Tech run, including two rainbow threes that silenced the UT crowd.

"It would have been very easy for us to fall apart in the first few minutes of the game, but give our kids credit," Budke said. "That was an impressive 10 minutes of basketball we played during the comeback."

Not to be outdone, Tennessee responded by outscoring Tech 18-4 over the next four minutes to regain the advantage at 38-30 before entering the halftime locker room leading 45-37.

"We felt pretty good about where we stood at the half," Budke said. "Our kids didn't back down and played toe to toe with them for the first 20 minutes. We are definitely a better basketball team at this point of the season than we were at the same point last year."

The two teams trade buckets early in the second half before Tennessee finally pushed the advantage out to 15 at 61-46 on Jackson's 24-footer from straight away at the 12:29 mark. However, Tech cut the deficit back down to 11 and looked to be making a run when it lost point guard Tasha Crain for the game with a mild concussion.

Crain went down after running into an Ashley Robinson pick and was unable to return.

"I really think that losing Tasha hurt us down the stretch," Budke said. "I'm not going to say we would have won the game, but anytime you lose your best defender against a team like Tennessee, it hurts."

Tennessee quickly built its lead up to 75-53 with five minutes remaining and never looked back in posting its fourth win in a row over the Lady Techsters.

Senior forward Amisha Carter led Tech with 17 points, while Trina Frierson added 11 points and 10 rebounds. Barkus and Erica Smith-Taylor added 10 points each.

However, the final 65 seconds of the game was delayed more than 10 minutes when Tech sophomore guard Aarica Ray-Boyd caught an inadvertent elbow while trying to block a shot and was knocked unconscious. Ray-Boyd lay on the Thompson-Boling Arena floor for over 10 minutes before Tech and UT medical personnel wheeled her off on a stretcher and took her to UT Medical Center for precautionary measures.

The Texarkana, Texas, native was checked out, cleared and released, and returned to Ruston Sunday night with her teammates.

Tech returns to action Tuesday night when the Lady Techsters host Arkansas-Little Rock at the Thomas Assembly Center at 7 p.m.