App State women’s basketball put up a good fight on the road against Georgia State University in the first half of their matchup Saturday afternoon, but the Panthers ran away with the game in the second half to hand the Mountaineers a resounding 79-57 loss.
Senior guard Emma Smith made a layup in the opening minute to start the scoring. Smith was the star of the show for the Mountaineers, as she was the only Mountaineer to reach double-digit points, scoring 18 in the game.
Sophomore forward Feryal Defne Atli made 2 early buckets to help App State begin the game strong. The Mountaineers quickly got out to an 11-3 lead four minutes into the first quarter.
The Panthers responded with a 6-0 run to trim the lead to 2, but senior guard Emily Hege drilled a 3-pointer to stop the run. Smith followed suit a couple minutes later with a 3-pointer of her own and added a layup for good measure to give App State a 19-12 lead at the end of the first quarter.
Freshman guard Riley Stoker splashed a jump shot to start the second quarter. Stoker’s basket grew App State’s lead to 9 points, the team’s largest of the game.
The Panthers slowly chipped away at the deficit throughout the quarter. Georgia State shot well in the second quarter, going 6-9 from the field.
The Panthers trimmed App State’s advantage to 4 points with two minutes remaining in the first half, then sophomore guard Jayden McBride drained a 3-pointer to slow the Panthers’ momentum. The Mountaineers went into halftime holding a narrow 31-28 lead.
Georgia State tied the game with a 3-pointer at the start of the third quarter, but Smith answered with a quick layup to restore the lead. After a Panthers basket, McBride responded with a layup of her own for a 35-33 lead two minutes into the quarter.
The Panthers took over for the remainder of the third quarter. Following McBride’s layup, Georgia State went on a 10-0 run to grab control of the game. Smith hit a 3-pointer to temporarily stop the bleeding, but Georgia State scored the next 5 points to stretch their lead to 48-38.
Despite Smith’s stellar offensive production in the game, the mistakes piled up for the Mountaineers in the third quarter. App State turned the ball over 7 times in the quarter, and the Panthers cashed in with 13 points off the Mountaineers’ turnovers.
App State scored only 9 points in the third quarter compared to 28 for the Panthers. The Mountaineers ended the quarter trailing by 16 points, 56-40, after they began it with a 3-point lead.
Stoker and senior forward Elena Pericic featured heavily to begin the final 10 minutes of the game. They combined to score the Mountaineers’ first 8 points of the fourth quarter.
However, App State’s defense could not slow down Georgia State’s red-hot offense. With a little over five minutes remaining, Georgia State’s lead ballooned to over 20 points. Their lead grew as large as 27 with 2:39 left.
Panthers guard Crystal Henderson had a strong performance, racking up 27 points in the game, including 9 in the fourth quarter. Henderson led the way to a comfortable win, as the Panthers’ ability to consistently score from everywhere on the court allowed them to cruise to a 22-point victory, 79-57.
With the loss, App State falls to 1-6 in Sun Belt play and 8-9 overall on the season. The Mountaineers have lost 4 of their last 5 games and are ahead of only the University of Louisiana, who are winless in conference games in the Sun Belt standings.
App State travels to San Marcos, Texas to face Texas State University on Wednesday at 8 p.m. for potentially the final time before the Bobcats move to the Pac-12 Conference next season. The game will be streamed live on ESPN+.
