BATON ROUGE — Marie Ferdinand scored a career-high 23 points as 13th-ranked LSU overcame an eight-minute scoring drought in the second half to hold off Wake Forest for a 63-52 win here Wednesday at the Maravich Assembly Center.
With the win, the Lady Tigers improved 9-1 overall as LSU ran its December record to 26-1 since 1995-96. The win was LSU’s ninth straight since opening the season with a loss at Texas Tech and it also marked the Lady Tigers’ 15th straight at home. Wake Forest dropped to 3-6 with the defeat.
Joining Ferdinand in double-figures for LSU were April Brown, Katrina Hibbert and Ke-Ke Tardy all with 10 points each. DeTrina White scored only two points, but led the Lady Tigers with a season-high 13 rebounds. Heather Miller came off the bench to lead the Demon Deacons with 17 points.
“I think we forgot about the second half,” LSU coach Sue Gunter, who won the 597th game of her career, said. “Give Wake Forest for not getting out of the game and we go through a void for about a 10 minutes like we weren’t ever out there. I don’t know how to explain it.
“We just played very poorly in the second half and you could almost tell it was coming by the way we played in the first five minutes of the second half. It’s like they caught the bus home for Christmas break a little too early and quite frankly, we are very lucky to win the game.”
The Lady Tigers appeared to have the game out of reach midway through the second half as they took a 53-32 lead on a jumper by Hibbert at the 11:18 mark. LSU stretched took its biggest lead, 59-34, on a steal and layup by Ferdinand with 8:34 to play.
LSU didn’t score again for the next eight minutes as Wake Forest slowly chipped away at the Lady Tiger lead. In all, the Demon Deacons outscored LSU 18-0 over an 8-minute span that saw Wake Forest pull to within 59-50 on a 3-pointer by Miller with 1:44 to play. After an LSU timeout, LaChina Robinson hit an 8-foot jumper to get the Demon Deacons to within seven, 59-52, with 1:06 left.
LSU’s Angelia Crockett missed the front end of a one-and-one with 46.7 seconds left, but Wake Forest was unable to capitalize as Val Klopfer turned the ball over on the Demon Deacons’ next possession. Ferdinand finally stopped the LSU drought with a pair of free throws with 44 seconds left to give the Lady Tigers a 61-52 advantage. Ferdinand, who scored LSU’s last six points over a span of 8:34, hit a layup after a Hibbert steal to close out the scoring for the Lady Tigers.
“It’s difficult to explain what happened in the second half,” Gunter said. “I told the team in the dressing room that this is something that we can take care of when we get back from the Christmas break.”
LSU opened the contest like a team that wanted to put away Wake Forest before halftime as the Lady Tigers raced out to a 25-14 lead just 13 minutes into the contest. LSU stretched the lead to 31-16 on a jumper by Brown at the 3:07 mark and then the Lady Tigers increased the margin to 35-19 on a layup by Angelia Crockett with 43 seconds left in the half. LSU, behind 61 percent shooting in the first half, led 37-21 at halftime.
“I was very pleased with our performance in the first half,” Gunter said. “Other than the turnovers in the first half, we played very well. We executed on the offensive end and we did a good job of shooting the ball.”
LSU returns to action on Dec. 28 when the Lady Tigers play host to Jackson State at 7 p.m. at the Maravich Assembly Center.