After back-to-back road losses to Georgia Southern and Georgia State, the Mountaineers bounced back with a 73-63 home victory over Coastal Carolina Thursday night.
“After the week in Georgia, we got back and realized that oftentimes it happens where you start to focus so much on your opponents that you lose sight of what’s truly important and that was us,” said head coach Angel Elderkin. “So I really challenged our team to get back to our pressure and our pace. I thought we defended really well tonight.”
The Black and Gold were led by senior guard Faith Alston as she recorded her second double-double of the season with a team-high 15 points and 10 assists. This marked Alston’s fourth consecutive game as App State’s top scorer, following the week of Jan. 8-14 where she led the Sun Belt in field goals, points and points per game.
Along with Alston, four other Mountaineers scored double digits; sophomore guard Chae Harris and freshman guard MaKenzie Drout had 10 each while senior guard Taylor Lewis and sophomore guard Alexis Black finished with 11.
Harris and sophomore forward Rylan Moffitt led the team in rebounds with eight. Moffitt’s performance in rebounding continues at a high-level as she ranks second in the Sun Belt for rebounds and rebounds per game spanning from Jan. 8-14.
App State remained in control from tip-off as Coastal Carolina never led. The Chanticleers only outscored the Mountaineers in the fourth quarter with 25 points compared to the Black and Gold’s 22. App State outlasted Coastal Carolina’s late-game efforts by responding and converting four of their five field goals to end the game.
“I am disappointed about the let-up in the fourth quarter, that’s something that I’m definitely going to have to go back to, like how many times we put Coastal at the free throw line and the offensive rebounds we gave up,” Elderkin said.
As a team, the Mountaineers totaled 39 rebounds and 15 assists while shooting 40% from the field, 40.7% from three and 43.5% from the free-throw line. The Chanticleers totaled 50 rebounds and three assists, but were limited to shooting 33.9% from the field and 11.1% from three.
App State’s winning efforts against Coastal Carolina improves the Black and Gold to 9-8 overall and 3-3 conference record.
“I’m just really proud of the way our group responded today,” Elderkin said.
The Mountaineers will face a 13-5 Georgia Southern team at Holmes Convocation Center Saturday at 2 p.m. The game will be streamed on ESPN+.
