SAN MARCOS, Texas – A slow start in the first half where the Georgia Southern women's basketball team fell behind by as many as 16 was ultimately what made the different in Wednesday's Sun Belt Conference opener. Despite out-scoring Texas State in the second half, and keeping the Bobcats from securing a single offensive rebound in the second half, the Eagles never fully recovered as they fell 61-56 inside the Strahan Coliseum.

After scoring just six points in the first half, junior Angle McGowan finished the night with a game-high 20 points, the seventh 20-point game of her career and second of the season. At one point in the second half, she scored seven-straight of the Eagles points, most coming off driving layups. She ended the night shooting 50.0% (7-14) from the field and 80.0% (4-5) from the free throw line and just missed out on a double-double as she had eight rebounds.

Fellow junior Patrice Butler was the other Eagle to finish with double-digit points as she added 17 as well as six rebounds, three off both the offensive and defensive glass. Abby Hix came off the bench to contribute seven points as the Eagles shot 37.0% (20-54) from the field and out-rebounded the Bobcats 43-35. Georgia Southern out-scored Texas State 18-13 in the second quarter and 12-10 in the third. They also finished the game with 32 points both off the bench as well as in the paint, out-scoring the 'Cats in both categories.

For Texas State, Kaitlin Walla and Toshua Leavitt led the way with 14 points each while Raven Burns chipped in 11. The 'Cats shot 34.4% (21-61) from the field, including eight three-pointers, and went 11-15 (73.3%) from the charity stripe.

THE STORY
The Eagles (3-7, 0-1 SBC) fell behind early as the Bobcats (6-5, 1-0 SBC) jumped out to a 12-point, 16-4 lead seven minutes into the opening quarter. After the first two minutes of the second quarter, that deficit was 16 (24-8) but four free throws from Hix and Butler began a change in momentum.

Over the final 8:19 of the second quarter, the Eagles slowly chipped into the lead and trailed by just seven (31-24) at the halftime break, ending the half on a 7-0 run in the closing 4:30.

After Burns hit a trey to begin the scoring of the third quarter, the Eagles went on a 10-2 run in the span of six minutes to cut the lead to just two points, 36-34, with 2:14 left in the third quarter. The streak was started by a Trellanie English-Lurry layup and capped by am Alexis Sams jumper from just outside the paint.

From that point on, the Eagles worked to clear the final hurdle to take the lead, but never could find enough momentum. The Eagles never let the 'Cats get back out to a double-digit lead and kept Texas State from securing a single offensive rebound in the second half, but it was just not quite enough to overcome the slow start.

QUOTABLES FROM COACH DROWN
"Coming in we told our team that the biggest key for this game, like all of them, is that we need to compete for 40 minutes but Texas State came out and got on us early," said head coach Kip Drown. "They came out and jumped on us and we were down 16 at one point in the first half, but after that I thought we competed pretty hard and that was evident by them not having a single offensive rebound in the second half. I thought we did a very good job of picking it up on the glass.

"I'm really more disappointed for the team because I felt that for 30 minutes we really competed hard and we out-scored them. But we just buried ourselves at the start and we have to eliminate that as we move forward into Sun Belt play."

Looking ahead to Saturday's game at UT Arlington - "UT Arlington is a different type of club than what we saw against Texas State," Drown said. "We are going to have to handle some different defensive looks from them. We just have to build off of that last 30 minutes from tonight because we played solid basketball and we just want that to carry over."

NEXT UP
Georgia Southern will complete their time in the Lone Star State by heading to UT-Arlington for a game on Saturday, Jan. 2. Tipoff is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Eastern standard time.

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