App State women’s basketball hosted the Arkansas State Red Wolves Sunday, opening conference play on a high note with a 77-62 win.
The first quarter was a back-and-forth affair, with both sides unable to claim momentum in the first half of the quarter.
This changed in the last two minutes of the quarter when a layup by senior guard Asjah Inniss sparked a 8-3 Mountaineer run to end the quarter with a 22-16 lead.
The Red Wolves kept the game from getting out of hand in the second quarter, keeping the Mountaineers on a tight leash and never allowing them to extend their lead beyond 8 points before the halftime buzzer sounded.
App State had a decent shooting half, going 15 for 33 from the field. Despite this, they struggled shooting in other areas as they went a suspect 3 for 12 from three and 2 for 5 from the free throw line.
The Mountaineers came out of halftime and proceeded to smother the Red Wolves in the third quarter.
They blew the top off what had previously been a competitive game by outscoring Arkansas State 24-10 to take a 20-point lead at the end of the quarter.
The Black and Gold were outscored 23-18 in the final quarter but it hardly mattered in the end, with the final buzzer sounding at the final score of 77-62.
One of the biggest reasons the Mountaineers won is their dominance in the paint. They outscored the Red Wolves 48-24 in the painted areas while also out rebounding them 41-27.
The Mountaineers had multiple standouts with the headliners being senior guard Mara Neira and junior forward Elena Pericic.
Neira led the team in scoring with 20 or more points for the second game in a row. Neira scored 20 points, 7-13 from the field and 4-9 from three-point land.
Pericic had a near double-double in only 19 minutes of action, scoring 10 while securing a game-high 9 rebounds.
The Black and Gold will return to action after the new year, traveling to Mobile, Alabama, to take on the South Alabama Jaguars Thursday for the first game of a two-game road trip. The game will tip off at 2 p.m. and will be streamed live on ESPN+.
