Dec. 30, 2007

Box Score

RALEIGH, N.C. - Western Carolina women's basketball had two players match their season high, in the first half, and one player score in double figures for the sixth straight game, but it wasn't enough to turn back an explosive North Carolina State team. The Lady Catamounts dropped their second straight game with a 72-53 loss to the Wolpack on Sunday at Reynolds Coliseum. WCU falls to 8-4 on the season and NC State improves to 12-3.

Senior Jessika Johnson, who got her first start of the season because of the injury to junior Brooke Johnson, tied her season-high of 10 points all in the first half. However, Jessika Johnson couldn't find the bucket in the second half. The same can be said for sophomore Kristen Feemster who hit three huge bucket in the first half, tying her season-high in the first 20 minutes, but didn't score in the second half.

Western Carolina got a spark from senior Monique Dawson in the second half. After scoring the first points in the game in the opening minutes of the first half, a three-pointer, Dawson didn't score again in the first 20 minutes. However, in the second half, she tallied 12 points to end the game with 15. Dawson matched her average in the last four games and is now averaging 15.2 points in her last five games.

The Lady Cats matched the Wolfpack almost basket for basket in the first half. Both teams shot a mirror image as both were 12-of-34 from the field and shot 35.3 percent. The difference in the first half was free throw shooting as NC State was 9-of-10 and WCU was 4-of-8. The game was tied with 1:06 left in the first half after Johnson hit a pair of free throws. NC State answered with her own free throws when Chanita Jordan connected on both with 41 seconds left to play. Western Carolina had a chance to tie the game but Heather Swayne's shot was blocked and NC State picked up the ball and Sharnise Beal hit a lay-up with one second left on the clock.

Western Carolina was trailing by four at the half, 34-30, and North Carolina State came out in the second half and went on a 14-9 lead in the first eight minutes of the second half. Western Carolina did cut the Wolfpack's lead down to eight with 12:09 left thanks to a three-point play by Dawson but NC State quickly answered with three consecutive field goals to push the lead to 15.

Overall, Western Carolina shot 35 percent from the field. The Lady Catamounts, who are normally pretty prolific from the free throw line, had an anemic performance at the charity stripe only hitting 9-of-21. The team also was just 28.9 percent, 2-for-7, from behind the three-point arch. NC State shot 40.6 percent from the field and was 14-of-22 from the free throw line.

Pellom was the third player to score in double figures with 10 points, scoring six of her 10 in the second half. Senior Chevon Keith led the team in rebounds with nine, just missing a double figure rebounding performance. Feemster had a season-high eight rebounds.

Western Carolina will try and rebound on Thursday when the team plays its final non-conference game of the season traveling to UNC-Wilmington. It is the second of four straight road games for the Lady Catamounts. Tip-off is set for 7 p.m.

HEAD COACH Kellie Harper QUOTES:

"I was very disappointed in our play today. I thought physically they pushed us and abused us on both ends of the court. Their size really affected our offense. It made it tough on our players to score. I really felt like our focus wasn't here today and we weren't ready to play. We can correct this and we will correct this in the next two days. It doesn't matter who we play we aren't going to win basketball games playing like this."