WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – The Lady Tigers opened their season with a 60-57 loss to Wake Forest at LJVM Coliseum Friday evening.
Freshman Ayana Mitchell and junior Raigyne Moncrief led the Lady Tigers in scoring with 14 points apiece. Mitchell was 6-of-6 from the field and 2-of-5 from the charity stripe. She also posted five rebounds and a steal. Moncrief was 6-of-18 from the field and 2-of-6 from the free throw line. She led the squad in rebounds with six and in steals with five. She also dished out a team-high three assists.
The key stat in the game was shooting from the free throw line. Wake Forest shot 81 percent (17-21) from the charity stripe while LSU was just 43.5% (10-23) from the line. Wake Forest also outrebounded LSU, 48-32.
LSU was able to tie the score at 51 with just over three minutes remaining in the game off a jumper by sophomore Jenna Deemer. Wake Forest pushed the score to 54-51 with free throws before Moncrief closed the gap to one point, 54-53, with a jumper. Alexis Hyder hit two free throws with 13.7 seconds remaining and WF leading, 58-55. Wake Forest dropped in two more free throws before Deemer dropped in two points with just one second remaining on the clock.
The Lady Tigers went to the locker room down by just one at the half, 22-21, after both teams shot just over 30 percent from the field. LSU was 9-of-27 from the field in the first half while Wake Forest was 9-of-28. The Lady Tigers posted a 3-of-10 mark from the free-throw line and WFU hit two of their four shots from the charity stripe. Moncrief and Mitchell led LSU in scoring with eight and seven points, respectively.
Ariel Stephenson paced Wake Forest with 21 points, followed by Kortni Simmons, who posted 15 points. Stephenson was 6-of-16 from the field and hit all six of her free throw shots.
From Coach Nikki Fargas
“I think when you are on the road, you are going to have to make your own breaks and we had an opportunity to win this basketball game. We had an opportunity to push ahead and we didn’t capitalize. When you are in this game, late in the game, you have to be able to execute. We have a lot of different people who took some shots and we need to make sure we are getting the ball in the hands of the right people. We will go back and look at the play action that we were running.”
“We always talk about this. You have to have your defense and you have to have your board play. We got outrebounded tonight. I thought Wake Forest played very tough on the boards and that allowed them to be able to control the tempo of the game. Our goal is to get to the free throw line 30-plus times. We got there 23 and only connected on 10 of those. That’s 13 points that we left out there and it was a one-possession game.”
Game Notes
Senior Anne Pedersen has started 18 consecutive games dating back to last season.
Junior Raigyne Moncrief was back in the lineup after being held out of the exhibition game. She has started 21 consecutive games for the Lady Tigers. She has posted at least one rebound and scored in all 63 games she has played in.
Moncrief has scored in double-digits in her last six consecutive games. She totals 38 career double-digit scoring games.
Over the last 40 years, LSU is 32-9 in season openers. Head coach Nikki Fargas is 3-2 in season openers in her five seasons at the helm of the LSU program.
The Lady Tigers are 26-14 in road openers. Note: This record does not include the 1975-76 season in which site information is incomplete.
The Lady Tigers have opened the regular season on the road 17 times since the 1976-77 campaign, and own a 12-5 mark in those contests.
Up Next
The Lady Tigers will open their home slate on Sunday against the ULM Warhawks at 3 p.m. at the Maravich Center.
The first 1,500 fans will receive a Koozie, and the 2015-16 Women’s Basketball posters and schedule cards will be available at the entrance.
Tickets are $10 for 100 Level Reserved seats and $7 for 200 Level Reserved seats. General admission tickets are $5 for adults and $3 for ages 3-12. Tickets can be purchased online at www.LSUtix.net, by phone at 225.578.2184, or at the ticket office window.
For all of the latest news and information on Lady Tiger basketball, visit www.LSUsports.net/womensbasketball. Fans also can follow the program on its social media outlets at www.Facebook.com/LSUwbkb, @LSUwbkb and @NikkiCaldwell on Twitter, @LSUwbkb and @LSUNikkiCaldwell on Instagram.