Three 20 Point Scorers Push Racers Past Austin Peay

Saturday, January 10

RSEC

4:30 p.m.

Murray State

Austin Peay

1/10/2009 6:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball

The “Big Three” on the Murray State women's basketball team each added more than 20 points to their career totals to help the Racers (9-6, 4-1 Ohio Valley Conference) to an 87-77 win over Austin Peay at the Regional Special Events Center.

“It was great to get a win over a team that was ahead of us in the conference standings,” said head coach Rob Cross. “I was concerned coming in about how hard Austin Peay plays.”

Senior Ashley Hayes led the way by recording her fourth-straight double-double of the season with 29 points and a season-high 14 rebounds. Amber Guffey added 27 points and her twin sister Paige Guffey tallied 21 points. All three tallied at least two shots from beyond the arc and six shots from the charity stripe.

“Ashley Hayes being able to come into a game and score 29 points and add 14 rebounds is something that she came to Murray State with the ability to do,” said Cross. “We were lucky enough to be able to help her develop those skills.”

The Lady Govs (8-9, 4-2 OVC) got on the scoreboard first, just over a minute into the game, but when Paige Guffey got Murray State into the mix less than a minute later she sparked a 7-0 run, scoring the first five points herself, over a three minute span to give the Racers the lead. Austin Peay tied the game at seven with a 5-0 run in a 30 second span and then took a one-point lead until 13:35.

Amber Guffey then went on a 4-0 run to give Murray State the lead again. The Lady Govs tied the game one more time with just under 10 minutes left to play in the opening stanza. Austin Peay used a 5-0 run in the 1:30, but the Racers followed that with a 5-1 run in the next two minutes to take the lead for good.

Over the next 3:30 Murray State went on a 9-0 run to get the lead into double-digits. The Racers held onto a six to 10 point advantage for the remainder of the first 20 minutes of play.

Murray State built the lead to as many as 11 points in the first 5:30 of the second half before the Lady Govs made a push and cut the lead to two points with 9:46 left in the half. Austin Peay used an 18-8 run in the time frame, including seven points from Nicole Jamen. The Racers quickly recovered from the slump and built the lead back up to 12 points with a 13-3 run.

The final five minutes of the game were a back-and-forth battle, but the lead was too much for the Lady Govs to overcome and Murray State went on to win 87-77.

Both teams had strong shooting performances on the night, with the Racers shooting 50 percent (28-of-56) and Austin Peay earning a 43.5 (27-of-62) mark. Murray State used key advantages at the charity stripe and beyond the arc to claim the victory. The Racers netted eight of their 21 attempts (38.1%) from three-point range, while the Lady Govs only made four of their 14 shots (28.6%).

While both teams made it to the free-throw line close to the same number of times (25-27), Murray State connected on 92 percent (23-of-25) of their attempts and Austin Peay hit only 70.4 percent (19-of-27) of its shots with the clock stopped.

The Racers will now hit the road for two OVC games next week. Murray State first travels to face Jacksonville State, Thursday, Jan. 15 at 5:30 p.m. and then battles with Tennessee Tech, Saturday, Jan. 17 at 5 p.m. The game against the Golden Eagles will be aired live on ESPNU.

Notes: The top three scorers for the Racers combined for 77 points, the total scored by Austin Peay in the game...it was the second time this season that Murray State ahad three players tally more than 20 points in the game...Murray State has won its last three games and the last five-of-six...Paige Guffey tied a career-high with nine free throws made...freshman Mallory Schwab tallied a career-high three steals...junior Jasmyne Thornton played the last three minutes of the first half...it was the first time that she had participated in a game this season for the Racers...Murray State was out-rebounded 41-28 and is now 5-4 on the year when tallying lower rebound totals than its opponents.

Quotes

Head Coach Rob Cross

“Head Coach Carrie Daniels is doing a great job at Austin Peay. They have have some tough young women who just flat out compete.”

“They got 17 offensive rebounds on us and most of those were on balls that hit the ground before someone got control. We had a hand on a lot of those rebounds, but they were able to get two and that is something that we need to get better at if we are going to win on the road.”

“At times we show that we are a good rebounding team, but we need to have our players do that more often.”

“I know everyone gets excited about our lack of bench scoring, but that is on me and I am not asking those players to score. I am running plays for our starters, but that does not mean that the rest of the players are not capable of scoring.”

“When we need them to go in and score they have been doing so. But tonight I felt that they best way to maintain our lead was to keep the ball in Ashley, Amber and Paige's hands because they were able to get to the line and make their shots.”