Murray State University Athletics
Murray State
Western Kentucky
Holmes scores career-high 23 in 72-64 loss to Western Kentucky
1/2/2004 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
The Murray State Lady Racers fought hard to make Western Kentucky's first trip to Murray in 13 years an inhospitable venture, but the Lady Toppers fought back, pushing ahead down the stretch for the 72-64 win.
Senior guard Stacy Holmes scored a career-high 23 points to lead all scorers, and led the team with seven rebounds, three steals and two blocked shots.
Murray State (4-6) took an early lead before Western Kentucky went on a 15-3 run, grabbing its largest lead, 17-7, with 15:22 left in the first half.
The Lady Racers trailed 19-9 before taking a run of its own, outscoring the Lady Toppers (5-6) 13-4 over the next 5:24 to narrow the deficit to 23-22 when junior forward Kaleena Miller hit a jumpshot with 8:44 left in the half.
WKU pushed its lead to five points, but MSU fought back again, tying the game 39-39 on a three-pointer by senior guard Jenny Bowden with 1:11 left in the period. Western was able to get a layup and take a 41-39 lead into the locker room at intermission.
Murray State tied the game on a jumper by Holmes to start the second half, then led for most of the half, opening the second period on a 10-4 run, taking a 49-43 lead on a layup by freshman forward Angela Mullins with 15:54 left in regulation.
MSU led 58-52 when Holmes hit a layup with 9:10 left, before Western Kentucky started its comeback, outscoring the Lady Racers 10-2 over the next six minutes to take the lead for good.
"We didn't rebound well," said MSU head coach Joi Williams. "We talked about keeping them off the offensive boards, because Western is a good rebounding team. The bottom line is, we gave up too many offensive boards at crucial times, and then we fouled, and Western is a good free-throw team, too,
"We had a period of time in the second half where we were doing well in transition, and (Western) looked a little intimidated, but they had a stretch where they ran on us, too. We did a good job in our transition offense, but our transition defense gave up too much."
Junior guard Rebecca Remington added 11 points for Murray State, while Mullins grabbed a co-team-high seven rebounds. Bowden handed out a carer-high-tying six assists and had a co-game-high three steals for MSU.
Western Kentucky had four players in double-figures, including Krystal Gardner with 19 points, Leslie Logsdon with 16, Carla Bartee with 13 and Tiffany Porter-Talbert with 12.
Porter-Talbert had a game-high 14 rebounds and three steals, while Tiffany Zaragoza had six assists.
This game marked Western Kentucky's first trip to Murray since Jan 9, 1991.
Murray State completes this brief two-game homestand on Monday, when the Lady Racers host East Carolina at 7 p.m. in MSU's Regional Special Events Center.
