by Joey Papania
LSUsports.net
BATON ROUGE — After trailing by as many as 11 points, the LSU Lady Tigers battled back for a 57-45 win over Stephen F. Austin in the second round of the NCAA Tournament Sunday evening. The win advances the Lady Tigers to the Sweet 16 in Richmond, Va. Saturday where they will face the winner of Duke and Western Kentucky.
The Lady Tiger’s defense gave up only 14 second half points; seven of those 14 points came with under one minute to play in the game. Offensively, LSU shot 58 percent (15-26) from the floor and outscored the Ladyjacks 35-to-14 in the second half.
April Brown led all scorers with 13 points, and four of the five Lady Tiger starters scored in double figures. DeTrina White contributed 12 points and 10 rebounds despite being limited to only 28 minutes due to foul trouble.
The Ladyjacks opened the game with 6-0 run. Head coach Sue Gunter‘s team struggled early offensively but would respond with their own 6-0 run to tie the game with 14:11 left in the first 20 minutes of play. SFA would prove to have the hot hand early in the game. In the first half, the Ladyjacks starting five would combine to shoot 52 percent (13-25) from the floor, including 50 percent (4-8) from beyond the three-point line.
SFA led by as many as 10 in the first half and held the Lady Tigers to just 37 percent (11-30) shooting from the floor. LSU would score only four points in the final 4:55 of the first half and went to the locker room trailing 31-22.
“After halftime we realized that this is our house, and we want to go to the Sweet 16,” said senior Katrina Hibbert. “So we picked it up defensively, (April Brown) started knocking down her shots and we hit the offensive boards harder which changed the momentum of the game.”
The second half began well for SFA grabbing their largest lead of the game with a basket by Shawnta Johnson on their first possession. Johnson finished with a double-double adding 10 points and 10 boards in 36 minutes. But with 15:28 left in the game, Hibbert knocked down an 18-footer that sparked an 18-0 run that would give the Lady Tigers a seven point lead, a lead they would not relinquish.
The Lady Tigers used a suffocating man-to-man defense to force 17 SFA turnovers. As a team, LSU gathered 12 steals for the game, six by Marie Ferdinand. The junior also added 11 points, seven rebounds and six assists in a 40 minute effort.
“We’ve been a good man-to-man defensive team all year, we just needed to have a little bit of faith in what we do best and go out and get after it,” Gunter said. “The shots didn’t fall for us early. But we have been talking about it since the Vanderbilt game, if things are not falling for you, you’ve just got to suck it up and make something happen on the other end of the floor. And the difference in this basketball game was our defense in the second half.”
Another key for the Lady Tigers was the play of reserve Jamie Hawkins. The 6’3″ freshman came off the bench to score six points and grab four boards in just 12 minutes. Hawkins also added two big second half blocks.
Coach Gunter will be making her second straight Sweet 16 appearance, the sixth in her career at LSU. The last time the Lady Tigers advanced into the Elite Eight was in 1986 when they lost to Tennessee, 67-65.