BATON ROUGE — On Senior Night, it was freshman Seimone Augustus who led the fourth-ranked LSU women’s basketball team to a 70-57 victory over No. 19 Arkansas on Thursday evening in the Maravich Assembly Center.
Seniors Kisha James, Patty Hanten, Aiysha Smith, Ke-Ke Tardy and DeTrina White played their final home games in the PMAC, combining for 31 points.
LSU (24-2, 11-2 SEC) avenged a Jan. 19 loss to Arkansas, 82-72, and also rebounded from its second defeat of the season at the hands of No. 3 Tennessee, 68-65, only three days ago.
Arkansas (19-9, 6-7), which has lost 6-of-9 since upsetting the Lady Tigers in Fayetteville more than a month ago, shot only 37.5 percent (24 of 64) from the field and was outscored at the free throw line, 14-5.
Augustus, who completed a double double with 11 rebounds, scored 11 of her 17 points in a span of 5:12 midway through the second half and finished 6-of-13 from the field and 5-of-6 from the line. Senior forward Ke-Ke Tardy, who led LSU with nine points in the first half, totalled 15. Point guard Temeka was the only other Lady Tiger in double figures scoring with 10 points, four assists and two steals.
Arkansas’ India Lewis led all scorers with 18 points on 7-of-17 shooting including 4-of-9 from beyond the arc. Dana Cherry chipped in with 12 points.
In a half characterized by one scoring run by another, the Lady Tigers led 31-30 after 20 minutes of play despite a 15-4 Arkansas run to end the half.
LSU broke open a seven-point lead, 9-2, on a fast-break layup by Tardy in the first five minutes of the game. After Arkansas closed within three, 11-8, the Lady Tigers answered with five straight to move the advantage back to seven at the 11:44 mark.
Arkansas closed the gap to one, 16-15, on a jumper by Lakishia Harper, but LSU scored the next 11 points over a span of 4:36 to lead 27-15.
The LadyBacks responded with a 9-0 run of their own, capped by consecutive layups by Rochelle Vaughn and Cherry at the 2:01 mark to get back within three, 27-24.
Back-to-back three-pointers by Lewis in the final 1:13 of the half gave the LadyBacks their first lead, 30-29, but 26 seconds later Smith took it back for LSU with a jumper of her own.
Arkansas took its second and final lead of the contest only eight seconds in the second half, but it was short lived and long forgotten just a few minutes later.
With 16:11 to play in the game, Doneeka Hodges hit a three-pointer that started a 17-0 run over the next 6:15 to push the LSU lead to 20, 57-37. During the run, Augustus scored nine points including a three-point play on a fast-break.
Arkansas answered with four straight in an attempt to stay with the streaking Lady Tigers. Augustus’ pair of free throws off LadyBacks’ coach Gary Blair’s technical foul for hurling the ball across the court started a 7-0 LSU run that gave LSU it’s biggest lead, 64-41, with 6:23 to go.
With LSU up 70-49, Lewis hit consecutive three-pointers and knocked down an 18-foot jumper, as the LadyBacks scored the final eight points of the game to fall by 13.
The Lady Tigers complete the regular season with a road contest at Vanderbilt on Sunday at 2 p.m. on SEC-TV.