Jan. 26, 2008

Box Score

GREENSBORO, NC - The Winston-Salem State Lady Rams (1-14) battled hard for the first half, but could not withstand a strong offensive second half by the North Carolina A&T Lady Aggies (12-5) that left the Lady Rams with 71-51 loss at Cal Irvin-Don Corbett Court in Greensboro, NC. The Lady Rams struggled to keep up with a North Carolina A&T team that took more shots in the second half (42) than the Lady Rams took for the entire game (39).

Despite the loss, the Lady Rams had one of their best offensive games of the season scoring 51 points, the fourth highest point total by the squad this season, and shot 38.5% from the field in the game. However, the squad was plagued by 34 turnovers in the game. The Lady Aggies benefitted from the WSSU turnovers scoring 30 points off WSSU turnovers. WSSU freshman guard Corbin Bradford led the way for the Lady Rams with 20 points in the loss. Fellow freshman forward Vontisha Woods added 12 points and a team-high eight points in the loss. The short-handed Lady Rams played well despite missing freshman forward Jalesa Byrd, who missed her first start of the season.

North Carolina A&T was led by sophomore guard Ta'Wanna Cook's 27 points, including five three-pointers made in the game. Senior guard Amber Bland added 15 points. Shantar Waddell added 10 rebounds in the game as well.

The Lady Rams got off to a great start in the game behind Bradford's scoring the first eight WSSU points of the game. Bradford single-handedly led the Lady Rams to an 8-6 lead hitting her second three-pointer of the game at the 16:47 mark. For much of the remainder of the half, the Lady Rams stayed close, falling behind by no more than three points until the final minutes of the half. WSSU freshman guard Nikki Kee would give the team it's last lead of the game, 24-23 with 5:11 left in the half.  Though North Carolina A&T would build a six-point lead with 2:37 left in the half, the Lady Rams would bounce back, cutting the deficit down to just one point on Bradford's second three-pointer of the half at the 00:51 mark. However, the Lady Rams would allow four Lady Aggie points in the final eight seconds and take a 34-26 deficit into the locker room at halftime.

The second half was much different from the first half with the Lady Rams not scoring a field goal in the first four minutes of play while the Lady Aggies would open the half on run that left the Lady Rams trailing 44-29 with 15:51 left in the game. The young Lady Rams would get no closer in the game with the Lady Aggies going ahead by as many as 28 points and the squad could get no closer than 18 points in the final minutes.

With the loss, the Lady Rams fall to 1-14 on the season and will look to remedy that when the team heads to Norfolk, VA to take on the Norfolk State Lady Spartans, Monday night.