BATON ROUGE — The LSU women’s basketball team shot 62.9 percent from the field and forced 35 turnovers on the way to a 95-47 blowout of the Tennessee-Martin Skyhawks in the first game of the first www.womenscollegehoops.com Crawfish Classic on Saturday afternoon in the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.
LSU improved to 2-0 on the season and will face Virginia Tech, which beat Northwestern State, 71-46, for the championship of the four-team tournament. Tennessee-Martin fell to 1-2.
Doneeka Hodges led the Lady Tigers with 19 points — 17 in the first half — on 7-of-15 shooting, while Aiysha Smith poured in 16 in only 21 minutes of play and Roneeka Hodges had 16 points and a team-high seven rebounds.
LSU point guard Kisha James had 10 points and a career-high 11 assists to post her first career double-double. Freshman Scholanda Dorrell added 15 points, five assists and five of LSU’s 18 steals. Smith led the Lady Tigers with six steals. LSU was 39-of-62 from the field.
Heavy full-court pressure by the Lady Tigers led to 18 first-half turnovers by the Skyhawks, while UT-Martin took only 43 shots from the field as it tried to solve the LSU defense.
Julie Young led UT-Martin with 13 points, as the team shot for 39.5 percent.
After 45 seconds of play, LSU led by six points before the Skyhawks could get the ball in their side of the court. The Lady Tigers took the opening tip and quickly went to Smith at the post for a layup. The Lady Tigers forced two turnovers with full-court pressure and turned these into layups by Roneeka and Doneeka Hodges.
Smith continued to dominated on the offensive end of the court, overpowering two and three defenders to score six-straight points and put LSU ahead 14-5. The 6-2 junior college transfer had eight points on 4-of-4 shooting to start the game.
The Lady Tigers pushed the lead to 14, 24-10, with 11:53 to play, as James and the Hodges twins converted baskets in a 9-3 run.
UT-Martin cut the lead back to nine, 27-18, on a three-pointer by Amy Watson from around 22 feet. However, LSU answered with eight straight points on field goals by Tardy, Roneeka Hodges and two by Smith to lead 35-18 with 5:25 remaining.
After a three pointer by Randi Morgan with 5:22 remaining in the half, LSU went on a 14-0 run that included two three points by Doneeka Hodges. The Lady Tigers led 49-21 with 1:16 remaining.
LSU led 49-25 at the half.
As each team scored eight points in a back-and-forth first four minutes of the second half, Scholanda Dorrell took a skip pass from James and hit a wide-open three pointer to take a 60-35 lead at the first media timeout.
A 17-2 run by the Lady Tigers gave them a 77-37 lead with under 10 minutes to play as the Skyhawks continued to struggle passing the ball between the LSU man-to-man defense. Meanwhile, LSU was led by reserve center Tillie Willis who had six points on 3-of-3 shooting.
LSU didn’t let up over the next four minutes, streaking ahead by 49 with 3:30 remaining in the game, 90-41.
GAME 2 STORY
BATON ROUGE — Virginia Tech made its first 10 field goal attempts over the first eight minutes of the game and went on to beat Northwestern State, 71-46, in game two of the www.womenscollegehoops.com Crawfish Classic on Saturday afternoon in the PMAC.
The Hokies (3-0) didn’t missed a shot until the 11:45 mark of the first half, but then proceeded to make only three of its next 18 on the way to a 34-17 halftime lead. After Northwestern State (0-1) scored the first four points of the second half, Virginia Tech went on a 20-0 run to go up 54-23 with 11:30 remaining in the game.
The Lady Demon’s scoring performance tied the lowest in school history, matching the previous lowest of 46 in a 51-46 loss to McNeese State on Feb. 24, 1979, in the LAIAW State Tournament. In regular-season play, the previous low was 47 versus Louisiana Tech on Jan. 12, 1980.
Northwestern State scored eight points in the final 1:50 on its way to a 32.7 percent shooting performance (18 of 55). After the early run, Virginia Tech made only 16 of 42 shots for 38.1 percent.
Virginia Tech was led by Chrystal Starling who had 17 points and seven rebounds, while the Lady Demons were led by LaTerrica Dobin who had 10 points.
Virginia Tech meets LSU in the championship game at 2 p.m. on Sunday, while Northwestern State takes on UT-Martin in the consolation game at noon CST.