Lady Lions advance to 3-0 in Southland with 61-58 win over Islanders

NEW ORLEANS, La. – The reigning Southland Conference champions Southeastern Louisiana University women’s basketball team protected home court by defeating Texas A&M-Corpus Christi 61-58 Thursday evening in a nail biter to advance to 3-0 in conference play.

Southeastern (7-7, 3-0) came out to a rough start, but moved past Texas A&M-Corpus Christi (9-5, 2-1) off a late fourth quarter run led by Jalencia Pierre (13) and Cheyanne Daniels (10) with three back-to-back buckets to the lead the Lady Lions in scoring.

SLU finished the game with balanced scoring as three players ended in double-digit scoring. Sophomore Allasia Washington joined Pierre and Daniels with ten points followed up by junior Taylor Bell with eight while Hailey Giaratano added seven.

Both teams shot a combined 54 free throws at the line throughout the matchup. Pierre and Washington lived off free throws for the Lady Lions as Pierre shot 100.0 percent and Washington ended 10-11 on free throws. For the Islanders Westbrook finished 10-10 while Tymberlin Criswell went 4-4 at the line for 42 combined points contributed by free throws.

Texas A&M-Corpus Christi went on a quick 3-0 start to the game, but Southeastern caught back up to push a back-and-forth game with seven lead changes. The Lady Lions had their largest scoring advantage of 21-14 with its best scoring run of nine points midway into the second quarter.

Southeastern shot 30.8 percent from the field, but weathered the storm with its tenacious defense holding one of the top three scoring offensive teams in the conference well below their average.

Westbrook proved to be a tough match-up for the Lady Lions and led all scorers with 16 points and 11 rebounds. Westbrook was the only player for the Islanders in double-digit scoring as Criswell, Miriea Aguado and Annukka Willstedt tied with nine points.
SLU once again depended on its bench and gained a 21-8-point advantage over Texas A&M-Corpus Christi’s reserves. Southeastern also flipped the script scoring 13 points off turnovers on the number ranked team in the conference in scoring defense who only ended the night with five.

The Lady Lions will be back on the road returning to action Saturday for a 1 p.m. matchup in Lake Charles against McNeese Jan. 13.

SOCIAL MEDIA
For more information on Southeastern Women’s Basketball, follow @LionUpWBB on X, like /SoutheasternWBB on Facebook and subscribe to the SLUathletics YouTube channel.

TICKETS
For ticket information, please contact the Southeastern Athletics Ticket Office at (985) 549-5466 or visit www.LionSports.net/tickets. Southeastern offers mobile ticketing as the primary source for securing tickets. All tickets will be available via e-mail in a PDF format for fans to download on their phone or print at home. Tickets can also be downloaded to Apple Wallet.

CLEAR BAG POLICY
Southeastern Athletics has instituted a clear bag policy for all ticketed events. For more information on the clear bag policy, visit www.LionSports.net/clear.