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The guards brought the scoring load for the No. 1 South Carolina Gamecocks, who won second-chance points 18-5 and went on a 43-15 run over the middle part of the video game en path to a 73-60 win over the Tennessee Lady Volunteers Thursday night at Thompson-Boling Arena in Knoxville.
Brea Beal ended up with 11 points, 11 rebounds and 5 helps, while Zia Cooke paced the winners with 19 points and Kierra Fletcher included 15 points and 3 assistants. That’s 61.6 percent of the Gamecocks’ scoring originating from those 3 guards. Aliyah Boston cracked in with 11 points and 4 blocks, while her frontcourt mate Kamilla Cardoso had 15 boards and 3 rejections. South Carolina (28-0, 15-0 SEC) took 20 offending rebounds with 6 originating from Beal and 5 originating from Cardoso. The group averages 18.3 on the season, which is 2nd in the country.
On the opposite, Rickea Jackson was not scared to take control of the video game sometimes, leading Tennessee (20-10, 12-3 SEC) with 21 points. Jordan Horston included 14 points, 11 rebounds and 3 blocks in defeat.
The Gamecocks’ 43-15 run took ball game from 26-16 Tennessee at the 6:37 mark of the 2nd quarter to 59-41 South Carolina getting in the 4th.
Eighteen is a really tough deficit to come back from in 10 minutes, however the Lady Vols did their finest, sufficing to 8 with a Jillian Hollingshed turn-around mid-range make at 4:51 staying in the contest.
Beal shut out the raised sound of the crowd and made a layup at 4:27 to press it back to 10. One minute and 37 seconds later on, a Cooke drive and layup made it 69-58. A Boston layup at the two-minute mark and a Raven Johnson totally free toss line jumper at 1:22 made it 73-58, almost bring back all the breathing space the Gamecocks had at the start of the last frame.
The 43-15 run started with a 17-0 run that took ball game to 33-26 South Carolina at 33 seconds to precede halftime. The Lady Vols were held scoreless for 6 minutes and 27 seconds and it was just with a Karoline Striplin 3 at 10 seconds left prior to the break that they had the ability to restore any momentum.
Down 4 at intermission was not so bad, and they sufficed to 4 once again at the 7:35 mark of the 3rd with 2 Jackson totally free tosses. But South Carolina responded to that with a 9-0 run that took ball game to 46-33. The run included a Cardoso container inside, 2 Fletcher totally free tosses, a Cooke layup and a Fletcher 3. Fletcher is not understood as a 3-point shooter, however was 2-of-2 from beyond the arc on the night.
The last crucial run of the bigger 43-15 run was an 8-0 stretch that closed the 3rd. After 2 Jackson totally free tosses cut it to 51-41, the Lady Vols entered into a full-court press, however to no obtain. Fletcher made a jumper in the paint, which Boston followed with a totally free toss and a wide-open mid-range make. Fletcher then finished up the 3rd with a 3-point play off a shift layup.
With her group down 26-16, Cooke made a totally free toss line jumper at the 6:15 mark of the 2nd. Boston later on obstructed Sara Puckett in shift and Cooke made a deep 3 on the occurring ownership to suffice to 26-21. Cooke scored next on another 3 and after that Cardoso and Beal opted for back-to-back layups, both of which came offending rebounds. Fletcher’s very first trey of the video game made it 31-26 Gamecocks and after that Beal rebounded her own missed out on totally free toss and dropped in a layup to make it 33-26.
It was backward and forward early and connected at 10 with 4:44 to enter the very first. Tennessee then went on a 9-0 run. Hollingshed struck from mid-range, Jackson made a brief bank shot, Horston ended up a layup, Jackson went 1-of-2 at the line and Jasmine Franklin published a layup off a help from Puckett.
South Carolina was the No. 1 general seed in the NCAA choice committee’s Thursday night expose; Tennessee was a No. 6 seed in ESPN’s Tuesday Bracketology.
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