Feb. 18, 2010

Box Score

LAS CRUCES - Adrienne Johnson and Shanavia Dowdell both recorded double doubles and the Louisiana Tech bench came up big as the Lady Techsters defeated New Mexico State 62-55 Wednesday night in Western Athletic Conference action at the Pan American Center.

Johnson scored a game-high 18 points and grabbed 11 rebounds while Dowdell added 14 points and grabbed 15 rebounds despite battling illness all night long.

With Dowdell under the weather, head coach Teresa Weatherspoon turned to her bench and sophomore Kiara Young responded, scoring six points and grabbing seven rebounds in 14 minutes of action.

"I thought our bench was the key tonight," Weatherspoon said. "Kiara is really starting to understand her strengths and utilize them. She gave us some big minutes tonight. She played with confidence. She shot the ball with confidence.

"Our entire bench came up big. Tarkeisha (Wysinger) and Brietta (Thomas) also gave us great energy off the bench."

New Mexcico State (16-10, 6-6 WAC) took an early 6-1 lead behind the offensive onslaught of sophomore forward Tabytha Wampler, who scored the first eight points of the game for the Aggies and ended with a season-high 18 points.

However, Johnson scored eight points during a 12-0 Lady Techster run as LA Tech held New Mexico State without a point for over eight minutes. By the time Wampler snapped the scoring drought with a bucket at the 9:06 mark, Tech led 13-8.

The Lady Techsters would hold a seven-point lead on four different occasions in the opening stanza, including a 23-16 advantage with less than a minute to play. New Mexico State closed the half by scoring five straight points, including a three-pointer by Jasmine Lowe at the buzzer.

Tech led only 23-21 at the half despite holding the Aggies to only 24 percent (9-37) shooting, including only 1-of-11 from beyond the arc.

"We didn't execute very well offensively in the first half," Weatherspoon said. "We let them back into the game because of that. We played well defensively at times but we have to learn to close out the end of the half and of the games. You can't let shooters get open looks and we did a couple of times and it cost us."

NMSU tied the game early in the second half before LA Tech started pulling away, building as much as a 13-point lead at 52-39 on a three-pointer by Whitney Jones at the 6:45 mark of the game. Tech's lead remained in double figures with just over two minutes to play before Wampler and Kaitlyn Soto hit back-to-back three-pointers to cut the lead to 56-52.

After a LA Tech turnover, NMSU had an opportunity to cut even further into the lead but Johnson stepped in front of a driving Jasmine Lowe to draw a charge with 31 seconds to play, giving the basketball back to the Lady Techsters.

Tech hit 6-of-8 free throws over the final 30 seconds to seal the victory, its fifth straight and 17th of the season.

Defensively, Tech held NMSU's top four scorers - who were all averaging double figures - to a total of 31 points on only 11-of-50 shooting as only Madison Spence scored in double figures with 12 points.

For the game, Tech hit 36 percent (24-66) of its field goals, 2-of-10 three-pointers and only 12-of-22 free throws. NMSU hit only 27 percent (20-74) of its field goals and 5-of-24 three-pointers.

The Lady Techsters will return to the court Saturday at 9 p.m. against Hawaii in Honolulu.