Lady Rebels fall to State at home

Bill Bunting
dm senior Staff writer

Lady Rebel head coach Ron Aldy finally saw the hustle he's been looking for in his team, but it was too little too late as No. 20 Mississippi State outlasted Ole Miss 66-60 on Thursday.

The win marks the first time that Mississippi State has ever beaten the Lady Rebels in Oxford.

"I was very disappointed to see that we waited until the last 15 minutes to play hard enough and execute well enough to put ourselves in a position to beat a good ball club," Aldy said. "I feel like we could have won. They (Mississippi State) made the plays and held on to win a game that was closely contested at the end."

Ole Miss (11-9, 0-7 SEC) allowed Mississippi State (17-3, 6-3 SEC) to take control of the game early and dominate for most of the first half. The Lady Rebels couldn't find the bottom of the net as Ole Miss hit only eight shots from the field while the Lady Bulldogs took the game down low and dominated in the post. Freshman center LaToya Thomas racked up 14 first half points to push Mississippi State out to a 38-22 halftime lead. Thomas finished with 22 points for the game.

"They hit their shots and we didn't take it to them and make them earn it," Aldy said. "We dug a hole early. In the first half we never really played that well. They had the upper hand."

The second half would prove to be a different story as Ole Miss attacked Mississippi State quickly in an attempt to pull themselves back into the game. The Lady Rebels shook things up and decided to push the tempo and force a change.

"Defensively we didn't have the quickness to match up with them well," Aldy said. "We decided to pick up the pace and make things happen. That changed the flow of the game in our direction."

Ole Miss began to chip away at the Mississippi State lead as the Lady Rebels forced turnovers and answered with a solid punch down low on their own.

Senior Frankie Boyd, who was almost nonexistent in the first half, went toe-to-toe with Bulldog freshman phenom Thomas and helped pull the Lady Rebels out of the slump. Boyd finished with 21 points for the game, 14 of which came in the second half.

The guard play of the Lady Rebels matched that of Mississippi State as junior point guard Chandra Dorsey found her stroke and added 12 points of her own. Junior guard Becky Myatt notched nine points for Ole Miss.

Senior forward Sinissia Wysinger added six points in 35 seconds to cut the Mississippi State lead to five with 1:30 left, but the Lady Rebels would come no closer as State would hit from the charity stripe. It was the same story for the whole game as the Lady Rebels hit only 5 of 14 free throw attempts while Mississippi State hit 16 of 21 for the game.

Ole Miss was hurt by the absence of sophomore Von-Gretchen Kirk, who is listed as day-to-day because of mononucleosis. The Lady Rebels will make a game time decision on Kirk's ability to play Sunday against South Carolina.

Sunday's game could be the Lady Rebels best chance to pick up the first conference win of the season as the Gamecocks enter the contest with only one conference win. South Carolina (11-9, 1-6 SEC) is coming off of a 71-62 loss to No. 13 Auburn.

Game time is set for 2 p.m. and will be televised by Fox SportsSouth.