App State women’s basketball went down to Statesboro, Georgia, for a late season matchup on Monday that saw the Mountaineers needing to win for favorable seeding in the Sun Belt tournament. App State gave up a last-second layup as the buzzer sounded to lose the game 57-55 and drop to the No. 7 seed in the conference tournament if the season ended Feb. 26.

Senior guard Zada Porter led the Mountaineers in points, rebounding and assists against the Eagles with 21, 6 and 1. This is the third game in a row where Porter has led her team in scoring.

The game started slowly for each team, as they combined to shoot 8-29 in the first 10 minutes. 

Senior guard Asjah Inniss led the team with 4 points off the bench in 4 minutes in the first quarter, including a buzzer-beating layup to tie up the game 11-11. Innis has played 27 minutes in the last two games after only playing 29 minutes over six games from Jan. 25 to Feb. 13.

Porter took over in the second quarter, scoring 6 points and playing lockdown defense on the Eagles best perimeter player. The Mountaineers followed Porter’s lead, holding Georgia Southern to 9 points in the second quarter but were outrebounded 13-6. App State went into halftime with a 25-20 lead over their longtime rivals. 

Rebounding was an issue for the Mountaineers, as they got outrebounded 9-7 in the third quarter and 10-3 in the fourth quarter. The Mountaineers allowed the Eagles starting forward to grab 14 rebounds herself along with 20 points. 

An efficient third quarter from the Mountaineers saw them shoot 8-12 from the field with Porter and junior guard Emily Hege combining for 6 of the 8 makes. Georgia Southern matched the Black and Gold’s production with 8 made shots from the field themselves but App State kept them at arms length to hold their 5 point lead. 

The final quarter was not as kind to App State as they attempted 5 shots, making 2 of them, from the field in the quarter compared to Georgia Southern’s 17 attempts. Their initial lead mixed with 8-12 from the free throw line kept the Mountaineers in the game late even with a struggling offense. 

Porter tied the game up on a fast break layup off of an Eagles turnover at 55 with 14 seconds left, forcing a Georgia Southern timeout. The Mountaineers played great defense coming out of the timeout but the Eagles got a timeout off with just one second left. A baseline out of bounds play call by the Georgia Southern staff allowed a player to get free for the buzzer-beating layup and put down the Black and Gold 57-55.