SUN BELT WOMEN

Freshman scores 20 to lead Trojans

— Freshman forward Shanity James hauled in a pass from forward Hannah Fohne and floated a hook shot that put the UALR women’s basketball team in control and marked her arrival in the rotation.

The basket capped an eight-point spurt to open the second half of the Trojans’ 76-48 victory against Rice before a crowd of 1,547 Saturday at the Jack Stephens Center in Little Rock. James finished with a career-high 20 points off the bench.

“It’s nice to be on the floor and nice to be able to be in the position to help my team,” said James, who was 9 of 13 from the field and had 5 rebounds. “It’s getting movement going, finally seeing that you can’t stand around and being able to understand how to move the ball.”

Sophomore forward Kiera Clark scored a career-high 18 points for the Trojans (4-1) in a game where leading scorer Taylor Gault was held to 11 points on 3-of-9 shooting.

“I’m learning, too, with all these young kids,” UALR Coach Joe Foley said. “We’re fortunate we can play our freshmen now, get them some experience, because we expect them to be good players.”

Clark, who was 9 of 12 from the field and pulled down 7 rebounds, spurred the 8-0 run when she made a baseline jumper for a 35-24 lead with 18:45 left in the second half. UALR’s pressure then forced Rice’s Nikki Maduka to throw an errant pass that Trojans guard Taylor Ford took in for a layup that made it 37-24.

Junior forward Hannah Fohne added a hook shot in the lane at 17:39, and James’ basket at 16:56 made it 41-24 and all but put away the Owls (2-3), who made just 13 of 53 shots from the floor (24.5 percent) and saw UALR turn 20 turnovers into 25 points.

“We’re all out there to help each other, and it doesn’t matter if it’s freshman, sophomore, junior or senior,” Gault said. “We’re there for the same reason, and if we can get that done with freshmen and sophomores, it’s what we’re going to do.”

The flip side of cycling youth through the rotation showed up in the first half, when aside from Clark and James, the Trojans shot just 4 of 18 (22.2 percent) shots and UALR made just 5 of 15 free throws.

Rice tried to slow Gault with a triangle-and-2 defense, with two defenders playing man-to-man against Gault and senior guard Janette Merriex while the three other defenders sagged off into a zone.

Rice held Gault in check and limited Merriex to two points on 1-of-4 shooting. Her lone basket was a jumper from the left wing with 8:30 left during a 19-0 run that stretched UALR’s lead to 68-36 with less than six minutes left in the second half.

Clark scored eight of the Trojans’ first 10 points. James checked in at 13:14 and scored her first basket on a baseline drive for a layup that cut Rice’s lead to 13-12 with 11:54 left in the first half.

“That’s who we’ve got to have shooting the ball when Gault’s not getting shots to fall,” Foley said. “That’s where Kiera has to step up. When they’re playing that type of defense, it opens up some jumpers you’ve got to knock down.”

But Clark’s inexperience also reared its head as she picked up three quick fouls and headed to the bench with 6:45 left in the first half.

Still, it was a performance to build off of.

“I know they were focusing on Taylor and Janette,” Clark said. “That means I need to knock down those easy jumpers, and it helped.”

Sports, Pages 31 on 11/25/2012

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