Women’s Basketball Nipped at Southern Miss

Thursday, March 5

Hattiesburg, Miss.

7 PM

Florida Atlantic

12-16, 6-11

Southern Miss

15-13, 7-10

Fla. Atlantic

Southern Miss

Photo by: ©JC Ridley/Owlpix.com

3/5/2020 9:45:00 PM | Women's Basketball

Box Score

HATTIESBURG, Miss. – The Florida Atlantic University women's basketball team (12-16, 6-11 C-USA) dropped a battle at Southern Miss (15-13, 7-10 C-USA) Thursday night by a score of 59-55. The Owls fought back from being down by as many as 12 points by outscoring the Golden Eagles 14-11 in the fourth quarter, but ultimately fell short, as Southern Miss delivered the go-ahead bucket with less than 10 seconds remaining in the game.

How It Was Decided

The Owls jumped out to an 8-2 lead a little over halfway through the first quarter, as Astou Gaye came up a layup off a miss. FAU tallied four 3-pointers in the first quarter, including one from Juliette Gauthier with 20 seconds remaining in the frame. The Owls rode on a 16-11 lead after one quarter of play.

FAU started out the second quarter strong, rolling on an 8-4 run. The Owls fell in a scoring drought for over two minutes to allow USM to go on a 6-0 run, but Gauthier made a basket to put the Owls back on the board halfway through the quarter. Nikola Ozola and Gauthier sunk 3-pointers on back-to-back possessions to put the Owls up by seven points, but the Golden Eagles scored six unanswered to creep up within a point of FAU, 32-31.

The Golden Eagles continued their scoring momentum coming out of the locker room by going on a 12-0 run. FAU would then heat it up on a 6-0 run, which was capped off by an Alexa Zaph 3-pointer. Crystal Primm made a jumper with 46 seconds left in the quarter, as the Owls trailed 48-41.

Things started to go the Owls way, as FAU jumped out on a 10-0 run to pull ahead for the first time since the beginning of the third quarter after a Gaye layup. The Golden Eagles answered on the other end with a 3-pointer, but Nikola Ozola tied up the game at 53 with a layup in the paint with 1:38 remaining. Southern Miss responded again to pull up by two points and FAU took a timeout, trailing 55-53. Coming out of the timeout, Zaph made a wide open layup to tie the game at 55 points with 38 seconds remaining. Southern Miss capitalized after their timeout with a jumper and with less than seven seconds left, a Golden Eagle steal sealed the game, 59-55.

Game Notes

Gauthier tallied a team-high 16 points along with four rebounds, while playing all 40 minutes for the third consecutive game
Ozola tallied a career-high 14 points, going 3-6 from beyond the arc. The freshman also logged three assists and a steal
Zaph came off the bench capturing seven points
Crystal Primm pulled down 10 rebounds, matched a season-high four assists and recorded six points
Gaye came up with a career-high four steals, matched a career-high four assists pulled down six boards and put up six points
Allie Tylka drew her first career start, logging six points, three rebounds and a block
The Owls made 10 3-pointers, just one shy of their season-high

Up Next

The Owls wrap up the regular season against Marshall on Saturday at 2 p.m. Senior day festivities will begin prior to tipoff at Abessinio Court at FAU Arena. For tickets, call 1-866-FAU-OWLS or visit fausports.com.

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