by by Matt Mays, Troy Athletics
TROY, Alabama – The Troy women’s basketball team dominated the paint with 11 blocks and used that to take a 70-63 win over UT Arlington at Trojan Arena on Monday night.
Troy (7-5, 2-1) picked up its second straight win and snapped the Mavericks five-game win streak along the way. The Mavericks entered the game with the nation’s fourth best scoring defense, allowing just 49 points per game. Troy, however, surpassed that mark with 10:43 to go and became just the third team to score 70 against UT Arlington (8-4, 2-1) this season.
The Trojans held UTA to 33 percent (22-of-67) shooting on the night, including 24 percent in the first half as they built a 29-23 lead at the break. UTA got within five in the second half, but never closer as Ashley Beverly-Kelley took over offensively.
The junior guard scored 14 of her team-high 17 points in the second half, hitting 4-of-6 shots from the floor and 5-of-5 from the free throw line. However, she was the lone starter to score in double figures, but the Troy bench picked up the slack.
“This is a good team that was coming off of five wins in a row,” Troy head coach Chanda Rigby said. “To break that streak, you have to do something special, and I think for the whole game the MVP award goes to our bench. For them to have over half of our points, that’s a nightmare for other coaches to scout.”
The Troy bench outscored UTA’s bench, 38-14, led by Rachel Reid‘s 15 points. Also off the bench, Caitlyn Ramirez (Seminole Tribe of Oklahoma)posted her first career double-double with 10 points and 10 rebounds.
Perhaps the biggest performance off the bench came from Kristen Emerson who posted 10 rebounds and six blocks. Emerson’s six blocks were the most by any Trojan in the team’s Sun Belt era (2005-present).
Emerson and Ramirez helped bottle up Rebekah Van Dijk, one of the conference’s top post players. The Trojans’ pair of sophomores held the Mavericks’ 6-foot-5 freshman to seven points on 2-of-6 shooting.
Van Dijk entered tied for first in the Sun Belt with Troy’s Ronita Garrett with seven double-doubles on the season. Garrett was one of the Troy starters that dealt with foul trouble as she posted four points and three rebounds in just nine minutes of action.
After trailing 9-2 to start, Troy went on a 16-0 run to take an 18-9 lead that it would never give up. That nine-point lead was the biggest of the first half for the Trojans, who built the lead to as many as 14 in the second half.
Troy held a 13-point lead with 1:03 to go, but the Mavericks scored six straight to end game, making the final margin much closer.
LaShanda Green’s 19 points led the Mavericks, followed by 10 from Tahlia Pope. Green hit five of the Mavericks eight 3-pointers, but the two sides shot the same exact percentage from deep as UTA hit 8-of-30 and Troy made 4-of-15.
The Trojans have now defeated UT Arlington and UL Lafayette in a three-day span. The pair had a combined 16-5 record entering their games against Troy.
The Trojans return to the court on Saturday when they travel to Atlanta to take on Georgia State. Tipoff at the GSU Sports Arena is set for 11:00 a.m. CST.
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