SPRINGFIELD, Mo. – Missouri State and visiting Drake treated the JQH Arena faithful to an offensive bonanza in the opening half of Friday night’s Missouri Valley Conference women’s basketball match-up, as the Lady Bears rallied late to take a 42-40 advantage into intermission.
Both teams were red-hot from the field, combining to go 34-of-64 (.531) in a half that featured seven ties and eight lead changes.
A recent string of subpar shooting performances for the Lady Bears appeared to be a thing of the past in the early stages of the contest, as MSU connected on its first three attempts from the field to build a 7-2 lead less than one minute into the game.
Christiana Shorter, who scored on a feed from
Casey Garrison just four seconds into the game, tallied MSU’s first four points, and
Jasmine Malone drained a three-pointer with 19:11 left on the clock to hand the Lady Bears the early five-point lead.
Drake battled back, using a 6-0 spurt to seize its first lead of the night on a Stephanie Running putback of her own miss at the 14:40 mark.
The Lady Bears and, more specifically,
Jaleshia Roberson, would respond with a 5-0 scoring run to match their largest lead of the half. The MSU junior rattled home a three from the right wing with 12:50 to play, then scored on a layup following a steal to make it a 22-17 ball game.
After Drake bounced back over the ensuing four minutes to ultimately knot the score at 27-27, the two clubs would blows for the remainder of the half. The Bulldogs took a two-point lead on a Kristin Turk jumper in the lane, before the Lady Bears reeled off five more unanswered points to claim a 32-29 lead.
DU would account for 11 of the next 15 points to take its biggest lead of the half at 40-36, capping the run on an Amber Wollschlager triple with just under two mintues to play.
But MSU would have the last laugh by registering the final six points of the period. Garrison hit a pair of shots in the paint, and Roberson converted two free throws with 35 secons to go to account for the final margin.
The Lady Bears shot .515 (17-of-33) from the field, while Malone went 3-of-4 from beyond the arc to lead the team with 13 points.
