Box Score
New Orleans, LA-The Belhaven women's basketball team traveled to Loyola University Saturday night and lost to the second place Lady Wolfpack 72-59. Loyola had a solid game shooting and on the boards in route to a 9-5 overall record and a Gulf Coast Athletic conference mark of 5-1. The Lady Blazers, who are now 12-6 overall and 3-3 in the GCAC, had a hard time slowing down the Lady Wolfpack attack. Loyola hit 52.9 percent of their field goals and outrebounded Belhaven 38-24.

 

The Lady Wolfpack got ahead early in the game on field goals by Christine Mainguy and Garkeiva Council to take a 4-0 lead with just over two minutes gone by in the first half. The Lady Blazers got on the board for the first time with 17:14 on the clock thanks to a Jaelyn Stringer free throw which made it 4-1 Loyola. Mallory Hammack gave Belhaven its first lead at 5-4 on a layup with 15:52 to go in the half.

 

The Lady Wolfpack would eventually go up by three points at 10-7, but the Lady Blazers responded by jumping back on top 11-10 on a Jaelyn Stringer field goal in the paint. Both teams exchanged the lead back and forth over the next couple of minutes and battled to a 14-14 tie with 9:29 left to go in the first half. From that point on, Loyola outscored the Lady Blazers 21-8 and closed out the first half with a 35-22 advantage.

 

In the first minute of the second half, the Lady Wolfpack pushed the lead to 14 points at 38-24 with 19:16 remaining in the game. However, Belhaven did not back down, putting together an 11-4 run to cut their deficit to seven on a Stringer break away layup with 14:59 remaining on the clock. A few minutes later Stasha Thomas bagged a jumper to bring the Lady Blazers to within six points at 46-40 with 9:42 to go.

 

Unfortunately, that's the closet the Lady Blazers would get the rest of the game. During the next six minutes that followed, Loyola extended their lead to 17 points with just 2:54 left in the contest. The Lady Blazers fought hard to pull within 11 points on free throws by Holly Dial, but with just over a minute to play there wasn't enough time to make up more ground.

 

Belhaven had three players in double figures in scoring led by Holly Dial and Jaelyn Stringer with 13 points a piece. Jira Williams followed with 11 points and a team high five rebounds. As a team, the Lady Blazers connected on 41.2 percent of their shots from the field and hit 38.5 percent of their three pointers.

 

Loyola was led by Lauren Pryer who scored a game high 21 point on 10-11 shooting off the bench. Four other players reached double figures on the scoreboard as Trenese Smith and Trenell Smith each dropped in 13 points followed by Mainguy with 12 and council with 11. Trenese Smith also paced the Lady Wolfpack in rebounds with a game high nine boards. To go along with their team field goal percentage of 52.9 percent, Loyola converted 82.4 percent of their free throw opportunities.