Disappointing ending to Mountaineers senior night

The Appalachian Online Appalachian State women’s basketball’s senior night blew a 19-point lead against Coastal Carolina on Saturday in their final regular season game before heading into the Sun Belt tournament next week.
The Mountaineers (11-18, 6-12 Sun Belt) used the emotions of senior night to jump out to a 7-0 run in the first quarter, thanks to the three senior starters Bria Carter, Ashley Bassett-Smith and Joi Jones, but after pulling ahead by 19 in the first half, the Mountaineers couldn’t hold on and fell 56-53 after a late game Chanticleers comeback.
“We wish the outcome would have been different,” Bassett-Smith said. “We definitely played hard, and we know our team gave its all for us.”
Senior Bria Carter scored 7 points against Coastal Carolina. Carter also played 26 minutes of the game against Coastal Carolina.
App State was able to dictate the pace of the game forcing Coastal Carolina to seven turnovers and capitalizing on them getting eleven points off turnovers, but despite leading the whole game, Coastal took their first lead of the game with 2:06 remaining in the game.
It seemed that the Mountaineers were going to put Coastal Carolina away before half time, but Coastal had a little run that gave them confidence heading into the second half.
“I didn’t like the way we ended the second quarter,” head coach Angel Elderkin said. “We gave up a 4-0 run that was really unnecessary.”
Starting off the second half, Coastal Carolina had more energy, playing a press and picking up the tempo.
The press was effective against Appalachian State, and they were not able to handle the physicality of the game, similar to the last time this season when the two teams faced off.
Senior Joi Jones also scored 13 points against Coastal Carolina on Saturday. Before this game, Joi received a memorabilia for scoring 1000 ...


Read more