(Orangeburg, S.C.) – In what was a close contest from start to finish, the Delaware State women's basketball team (3-16, 1-6 MEAC) failed to avenge an early season home loss to the South Carolina State Bulldogs (12-8, 8-4 MEAC) Saturday afternoon with guard Aaliyah Davis missing a potential game-winning 3-pointer as time expired, resulting in a 64-62 defeat.

With this loss, the Lady Hornets dropped their fifth in a row, whereas SCSU bounced back after a 35-point road loss to Hampton on Monday to win four out of its last five.

“It's disappointing to lose such a close game,” said head coach Tamika Louis.  “But hopefully we're turning a corner and will continue to have a chance to win each game.”  

Trailing 34-31 at the break, after SCSU closed the opening stanza on a 10-2 run, Delaware State faced its largest deficit of the afternoon at the 16:37 mark with guard Kourtney Williams draining a deuce to make it a 41-33 ball game.  

However, the Lady Hornets received a spark off the bench by way of guard N'Kayah Kersey, scoring 12 out of her 15 points in the second half, including hitting a trey to pull DSU within two (51-49) with just under eight minutes to play.  

As the half progressed, DSU knotted the game at 58 with 4:27 left, as guard Mikah Aldridge found forward Tierra Hawkins for a jumper inside the arc.  Less than two minutes later, same score, DSU's Amber Bogard sank two free throws to give her a squad two-point lead, the team's first advantage since the 2:40 mark in the first half. 

Unfortunately, the Hornets never led again, despite Hawkins, who finished with a team-high 16 points (8-of-16), tying the game at 62 with a layup with 1:25 left.  On SCSU's next possession, DSU forced a Jazzmine Johnson miss, but failed to corral the loose ball.  As a result, forward Jasmine Coleman pulled down one of her game-high 12 rebounds, followed by a putback deuce for the go-ahead bucket with 1:02 remaining.

South Carolina State did leave the door open for Delaware State, as Johnson missed the frontend of a one-and-one with eight seconds left, resulting in DSU calling a timeout after Nikkei Blackburn pulled down the rebound. Taking it out at half court with four seconds remaining, Davis inbound the ball to a well-defended Bogard, who kicked it back to Davis for a trey that fell short as the final buzzer sounded.

At game's end, Williams tallied 16 of her game-high 28 points in the second half as the only Bulldog to score in double figures, whereas the team shot just 36 percent (25-of-69).  In the case of DSU, Bogard (14) and Aldridge (13) scored in double figures, while Aldridge finished with a career-high eight rebounds.  Aldridge also went 1-for-3 (.333) from long distance to extend her streak of hitting a trey to 14 consecutive games.

“I was also happy with our balanced scoring today,” added Louis.  “We need more than one or two big scorers from here on and out, so that was a good sign of things to come.”

Coming up, the Columbia Blue & Red will wrap up their four-game road swing this Tuesday evening (5:30 p.m.) against NJIT.  Last season, Delaware State came away with a 75-72 overtime victory over the Highlands at home.  

Stingers

DSU shot 45 percent (23-of-51) from the floor… The Lady Hornets registered a season-high 31 points off the bench… Tierra Hawkins (1596) is now four points shy of becoming only the fourth player in school history to eclipse the 1600-point career mark… DSU outrebounded SCSU, 42-36… N'Kayah Kersey dished out a career-high six assists to lead all players… The Hornets managed one steal, compared to SCSU's 13.