Keara Hudnall scores a career high 24 points in Cowgirls' 85-81 loss at Nicholls

Staff Reports

The Contraband

McNeese State’s Keara Hudnall scored a career high 24 points in the Cowgirls’ 85-81 Southland Conference road loss at Nicholls Saturday. The loss drops McNeese to 15-8 overall and 7-4 in the SLC. Nicholls improves to 8-13 overall and 6-5 in the SLC.

“I thought we had difficulty the entire second half, you could see it coming. We just didn’t stay poised,” said head coach Brooks Donald Williams.

Leading 73-61 with 6:34 left in the game, the Cowgirls stumbled on offense and had some unfortunate turnovers as Nicholls outscored McNeese 24-8 during that span and 30-20 the entire fourth quarter to steal the victory. Nicholls has now won the last five meetings between the two teams.

“This has always been a tough place to play but we have to be a little tougher to withstand whether we get calls or whether we don’t. It’s disappointing because I thought there were some big plays where I thought we got stops and big plays we did defensively and our kids didn’t get rewarded for it,” Williams said.

McNeese ended the game shooting 47.6 percent from the field on 30 of 63 attempts and 88.2 percent from the free throw line, making 11 of 13 free throws but the Cowgirls were called for 24 fouls as apposed to Nicholls’ 16.

Hudnall was joined in double figure scoring with 22 points by Allison Baggett and 14 by Victoria Rachal. Hudnall was 9 of 15 from the field, 6 o6 from the free throw line. She nearly picked up a double double with eight rebounds. Baggett was 8 of 16, 3 of 8 from three-point range and made all three free throws. Rachal was 5 of 11 with two 3-pointers.

“Keara played a great game. I thought she was the difference in the first half. We never could get in a rhythm with any other post player because of the foul count and she stepped in and did a fantastic job. She was a mismatch for them,” Williams said.

McNeese took the early lead in the game by scoring the first four points. Nicholls went on an 8-0 run to take an 8-4 lead. The Colonels held as much as a five-point lead twice in the quarter but the Cowgirls closed the gap and trailed 18-16 after the first quarter.

The Cowgirls came alive in the second quarter behind Hudnall’s 13-second quarter points, tying her career high. Baggett started a 9-0 Cowgirl run with an old fashion three-point play to bring the McNeese to within one point. From here, Hudnall took control and scored four straight and two more came Rachal. McNeese took its first double figure lead of 10 points off a Mercedes Rogers layup. The Cowgirls went into the locker room leading 40-33 at the half.

Nicholls began the third quarter with four straight points in the first two minutes to cut the McNeese lead to one point (40-37). Both teams pretty much traded baskets the rest of the quarter but the Cowgirls maintained the lead and equaled its halftime lead of seven points on two Hudnall free throws with 1:13 left in the quarter.

McNeese will travel to Southeastern Louisiana on Wednesday for a 7 p.m. game. The meeting will be the second of the season between the two teams. McNeese defeated the Lady Lions 96-79 in Lake Charles on Jan. 27.