Rice University
Southern Miss
Owls Lose Close One at Southern Miss, 68-60
2/20/2010 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Feb. 20, 2010
Hattiesburg, Miss. - Southern Miss' Tanesha Washington posted a double-double with 21 points and 15 rebounds to lead the Golden Eagles to a 68-60 victory over the Rice Owls at Reed Green Coliseum. Sophomore guard D'Frantz Smart led Rice with 22 points.
Southern Miss (9-17, 5-8) began the contest on a 13-0 as Rice did not score its first points until 15:13 on a Tara Watts three-pointer. The Golden Eagles proceeded to forge their largest lead of the game at 35-14 with 6:04 remaining in the first-half. But the Owls did not give and outscored Southern Miss 12 to 3 in the final six minutes of first-half to be only down 11 (37-26).
Rice's strong play in the final six minutes carried over into the second-half as the Owls whittled the lead down and actually held a three-point margin at the 10:09 mark on a jumper by freshman center Opal Taskila.
Brianna Hypolite's made three-pointer gave Rice (12-14, 6-7) its last lead of the game at 60-59 with 3:51 on the clock. USM's Candace Rucker then pushed USM ahead at 61-60 with 3:08 left to play on two made free throws. The Golden Eagles in the final three minutes held the Owls scoreless as it closed out the contest on a 9-0 run with seven of those points coming at the free throw line.
The Owls outscored Southern Miss 34-31 in the final 20 minutes on 50 percent shooting from the field (13-26), but they only made 5 of 11 free throws in the second-half. Southern Miss, meanwhile, after taking zero free throws in the first-half, made 9 of 14 in the second.
Taskila had another nice game playing significant minutes. She scored 8 points and led Rice with 9 rebounds in 27 minutes of action off the bench. Amenemope McKinney also came off the bench to score 8 points.
Also in double-digits for Southern Miss were Washington with 18 points and Candace Rucker with 13.
The Owls next play Tulane on Thursday, Feb. 25 at 7 p.m. and host UTEP on Saturday, Feb. 27 at 2 p.m. for their final two home games of the season.
