Lady Colonels fall to Southern

Nicholls squad opens season with a pair of losses

BATON ROUGE- The Nicholls women’s basketball team found out on Sunday why Southern University is one of the Southwestern Athletic Conference’s premier squads.

 On the strength of solid interior and perimeter play, Southern downed Nicholls, 85-67 at Seymour Gym.

 &#8220It was hard tonight for us to slow down there inside players,” Nicholls coach Mark Cook said. &#8220We have a lot of young ladies on our team, and it’s going to take some time for them to adjust to the college game. We have moments where we look great, but at the same time we have stretches where we make bad decisions and don’t look great. It’s all about playing games right now and becoming more consistent with what we do on the court.”

 The Lady Colonels (0-2 overall), who were out rebounded 41-24, had trouble defending post players Fredricka Lewis and Ashton Jones. The tandem combined to score 25 points and grab nine boards.

 Nicholls jumped out to the early lead after Keyona McKibbens nailed a 3-pointer to give the Lady Colonels a 16-10 advantage with 16 minutes remaining.

 After Kelli Brasher made a free throw to put Nicholls in front 19-18 with 13:35 showing on the clock, Southern outscored the Lady Colonels, 10-5 on its way to taking a 28-24 lead at the 8:10 mark.

 After Jamie Octave knocked down a jumper to make it a 30-28 ball game, Southern went on a 19-7 run to close out the half.

 The second half saw Southern (2-0) building its lead to 20 points before Nicholls rallied to make it a 10-point contest at the 6:10 mark on a Octave layup that made the count 69-59.

 Leading the way for Nicholls on offense was Octave. The junior guard scored 23 points on 9-of-15 shooting. Funaki Kefu and Katherine Plummer also scored in double figures with 13 and 10 points, respectively.

 Besides Lewis and Jones, Southern was paced by Indi Johnson and Rolanda Monroe. Johnson scored 22 points, while Monroe poured in 19.

 The Lady Colonels will return to action this weekend when they travel to the Buckeye Classic to play Ohio State at 2 p.m. on Saturday.