Hot-shooting Lady Govs put a damper on Lady Racers

Thursday, January 12

RSEC

5:15 p.m.

Murray State

Austin Peay

1/12/2006 6:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball

Visiting Austin Peay hit 53.3 percent (32 of 60) of its shots from the field and held the host Lady Racers to 36.6-percent shooting en route to the 83-66 Murray State loss tonight in Ohio Valley Conferenec action in the Regional Special Events Center.

MSU junior forward Gerraca Matthews broke her own RSEC record with eight steals, just one short of the school record. She is the fourth Lady Racer to swipe eight steals, the first since Shonta Hunt on Feb. 4, 1998. Matthews' former arena record of seven steals came on Feb. 3, 2005, against Eastern Illinois.

Austin Peay (7-7, 4-3 OVC) used an 8-0 run early in the first half to convert a one-point MSU lead into a seven-point APSU advantage, and they never ceded that lead.

Murray State (4-11, 3-5 OVC) was led by junior forward Joi Scott, who claimed her fourth double-doublein eight games with 14 points and 11 rebounds off the bench.

Matthews added 11 points and had three assists, a co-team-high. Freshman guard Amber Guffey also had three assists for MSU. Freshman guard/forward Ashley Nichole Hayes had six rebounds, while junior post Erica Gordian also had six boards.

Austin Peay was paced by 21 points on 9-for-11 shooting from the field and 13 rebounds from Ashley Haynes, who also had seven assists and three steals.

Kellea Reeves added 20 points and 10 rebounds, while Amber Bacon had 11 points and Saundra Hale had 10 to go with a game-high eight assists and a team-high six steals.

"Our shooting was really disappointing tonight," said MSU head coach Joi Felton. "We are going to take advantage of the time off to work and prepare for Tennessee-Martin."

Murray State has an eight-day layoff before its next game on Jan. 21 at Tennessee-Martin.

LADY RACER NOTES
Murray State leads the nation in free-throw shooting with a .798 mark in the national rankings issued Tuesday by the NCAA.

Murray State tops five OVC categories in conference-only statistics going into tonight's game against APSU. The Lady Racers lead the league in scoring (75.1 points per game), assist-to-turnover ratio (1.17), free-throw percentage (.829), turnover margin (+3.86) and offensive rebounds (18.00). Murray State is second in conference-only stats in rebounding (42.0 per game) and third in steals (10.14 per game) and assists (15.71 per game).