Boxscore RUSTON ? Louisiana Tech used a dominating advantage on the boards to down McNeese State 88-43 before 1,268 fans at Thomas Assembly Center Monday afternoon in the Lady Techsters final non-conference tilt of the season.
Tech (6-7), which opens Western Athletic Conference play Thursday at Fresno State at 9 p.m., outrebounded the much smaller Cowgirls 69-17 to coast to the 45-point victory.
?We struggled in a few areas of our game in the first half, but I thought the one thing we did well the entire game was attack the glass,? said Tech head coach Chris Long. ?We came out of our circle and went after every rebound. We knew we had the size advantage, and we used it to our advantage.?
Tech jumped out to an early 8-0 lead before McNeese State used a run to cut the advantage down to 12-11 on a pair of free throws by Cowgirl Shante Perry with 13:38 to play.
Shanavia Dowdell then scored six of her game-high 14 points in a 13-0 Tech run giving the Lady Techsters a 25-11 lead with 6:13 to play. Tech upped the advantage to as many as 17 (30-13) in the first half before McNeese State used a closing run to enter the halftime locker room trailing only 37-26.
Tech held the 11-point halftime lead despite 14 first half turnovers. The Techsters outrebounded McNeese 37-5 in the opening 20 minutes of play.
The second half was a different story as Tech totally dominated, outscoring the Cowgirls 51-17 while committing only two turnovers.
?I thought we settled down in the second half and did a much better job running our offense,? Long said. ?I don?t think I?ve ever seen a team pack a zone in as much as they did, and we told our guards not to just settle for outside shots. You could see that we were hesitant offensively in the first half because of that, and we simply let it affect us. The second half, we responded.?
Tech also responded defensively in the second half, holding McNeese State to only seven points on 2-of-24 shooting in the first 16 minutes. For the game, McNeese State hit only 16-of-60 shots for 27 percent, including 7-of-30 from beyond the arc.
?I thought that for the majority of the game, we did a good job defensively,? Long said. ?They spread you out and then try to break you down off the dribble and kick out to their shooters. With the exception of the last five minutes of the first half and the last couple of minutes of the game, we did a very good job against this.?
In addition to Dowdell?s game-leading total of 14,
Adrienne Johnson,
Tarkeisha Wysinger and
Tiawana Pringle each scored 13 points. Johnson added 10 rebounds for her first career double double.
Sierra Nixon and Jo Sneed each registered 10 boards a piece.
McNeese State was led by Perry with 14 points.
