Foul Trouble Looms Lady Greyhounds

With only 7 active players, the Lady Greyhounds found themselves only finishing the game with 3 players on the floor after 4 Lady Greyhounds fouled out as the visiting Lady Tigers of Northeast Mississippi would walk out of The Dog House with a 81-65 victory.

The Lady Tigers of Northeast Mississippi and the Lady Greyhounds of ASU Mid-South met again for the 2nd time this season after the first meeting on November 7th saw the Lady Tigers defeating the Lady Greyhounds 105-59. The Lady Greyhounds coming off an impressive victory after their last game at Jones College, had the intentions of finishing their fall semester schedule off strong, as Esther Kwagala got the scoring started on a layup from Ayanna Rutledge. Mid-South would lead for majority of the first quarter before Northeast Mississippi's Madison Gardner would give the Lady Tigers a 12-11 advantage for their first lead of the night with 1:30 left in the quarter. The Lady Tigers would push the lead to 5 as they would hold an 16-11 lead over the Lady Greyhounds at the end of the 1st quarter.

 The Lady Greyhounds would quickly tie things up after a Cheralyn Rester 3 pointer, and a Ayanna Rutledge layup in the first 2 minutes of the quarter. After things got squared away at 20, Northeast Mississippi would go on a 11-1 run over the next 3 minutes extending the lead to double digits for the first time this game. Rutledge would soon get it back to single digits as she buried the corner 3. The Lady Greyhounds would cut the lead to 6, but the Lady Tigers would answer right back and finish the half strong going into the half leading the host Greyhounds by a score of 40-28.

The second half would pick up right where the first half ended with there being a lot of whistles against both teams. Halfway through the 3rd quarter, both teams had 4 fouls called on them sending them to the bonus on the next foul call. The Lady Tigers would start to use this to their advantage as the already short handed Greyhounds were starting to get multiple people in foul trouble. Over the first 5 minutes, the Lady Tigers would outscore the Lady Greyhounds 14-7, pushing their lead to 19 before a Madison Gardner mid-range jumper pushed the lead to 21. ASU Mid-South's Rutledge would drive to the basket and get the layup to fall while also getting fouled. She would go on to make the free throw closing the lead to 18. Kwagala would hit a tough runner right before the 3rd quarter buzzer goes off to cut the deficit to 15 heading to the 4th quarter.

Over the first 2 minutes of the 4th quarter, there had already been a total of 5 fouls called. 2 on the Lady Greyhounds and 3 on the Lady Tigers, which result in Kayla Hudson the first of 4 Lady Greyhounds to foul out. The Lady Greyhounds would cut the deficit to 13 after Rutledge's steal on the inbound converting it soon after with 5:30 minutes remaining in the game. With 4:33 remaining Esther Kwagala would pick up her 5th foul, as Cheralyn Rester who was injured earlier in the game would come back in to try and finish out the game strong. With 4:05 left in the game, Jakiyah Bell would pick up her 5th foul as the third Lady Greyhound to be disqualified from the contest leaving only 4 Lady Greyhounds to finish the game. Not even 2 minutes later, London Robinson would be the fourth Lady Greyhound to pick up her 5th foul, now only leaving the Lady Greyhounds with 3 active players. Those 3 players would go on to outscore the Lady Tigers 5-2 in the last 2:30 of the contest giving us a final score of 81-65.

Rutledge would lead the Lady Greyhounds with 26 points and 7 rebounds. Jakiyah Bell would be the only other Lady Greyhound to score double figures as she pitched in 10 points and 6 rebounds.

Up next for the Lady Greyhounds is Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College on January 4th, their first game back from Christmas break.