Louisiana women's basketball held Georgia Southern scoreless over the final two and a half minutes of the game to come away with a 62-57 Sun Belt victory on Thursday evening at the Cajundome.
The Ragin' Cajuns improved to 11-12 overall and 6-7 in the Sun Belt with the win, while Georgia Southern falls to 13-13 overall and 3-10 in the league. Louisiana also took a fifth straight win over the Eagles dating back to 2020.
Louisiana held the Eagles to just six points in the first quarter, taking a 13-6 lead at the end of the period. But Georgia Southern started the second quarter on a 10-0 run to battle back. Louisiana led by just one, 25-24, at the break.
In the third quarter, the Eagles took their largest lead of the game, 47-40, thanks to a three-pointer from Constance Thomas just before the end of the period. But Louisiana hit back-to-back threes to erase the deficit and eventually took a two-point lead, 56-54, with 3:01 remaining.
Terren Ward drilled a three-pointer at the 2:40 mark to put the Eagles back in front, 57-56, but a layup by Tamiah Robinson with two minutes left put the Ragin' Cajuns ahead for good and Georgia Southern would not be able to score again the rest of the way.
Ward led the way on the evening for the Eagles with 21 points, while Kayla Thomas added 15 points. Robinson led a quartet of Ragin' Cajuns in double figures with 18 points.
Eagle of the Game
Kayla Thomas registered a career-high scoring night by hitting 7-of-10 shots from the floor, while grabbing six rebounds. She also registered a pair of steals and had a blocked shot.
Stat of the Game
Louisiana hit 7-of-13 shots (53.8 percent) from the floor, including 3-of-6 from three-point range, in the fourth quarter while Georgia Southern shot just 3-of-14 (21.4 percent) from the floor in the final period, including hitting just 1-of-5 threes.
Quotables
Head Coach Anita Howard on scoring only 16 points in the first and fourth quarters combined
"If we don't improve, we're going to continue to struggle in those areas. I thought we did well until we didn't."
On Kayla Thomas' career-high night
"It's good to have someone like that step up. We need consistency from all our players. If she can do that on a night to night basis that would be great, but we only had two people in double digit scoring and that just wasn't enough in this game."
Next Up
The Eagles visit South Alabama for a 2 p.m. ET Sun Belt contest in Mobile on Saturday, February 17.