JONESBORO, Ark. – The Georgia Southern women's basketball team started off with much better energy and focus Saturday afternoon and was able to jump out to an early lead, but a strong second quarter by Arkansas State spurred the Red Wolves to a 77-54 win over the Eagles inside the Convocation Center.

Angel McGowan led a trio of Eagles with double figures as she finished the contest with 16 points. The junior from Greenville, S.C. also finished the game with six rebounds as well as two assists and a pair of steals. She went 5-for-7 (.714) from the free throw line.

Alongside McGowan, junior Patrice Butler and sophomore Trellanie English-Lurry were the other two players to finish in double-digits for Southern (6-13, 3-7 SBC). Butler contributed 14 points and four rebounds while English-Lurry celebrated her birthday by matching her career-high of 11 points. Sophomore Sierra Butler matched the game-high for rebounds with 10 to go along with seven points, which she procured off 3-for-4 (.750) shooting from the field and a free throw.

Arkansas State's Aundrea Gamble was the leading scorer in the game, finishing with 20 points after being shut out in the first quarter of play. Also scoring in double figures for the Red Wolves (16-3, 10-0) were Khadija Brown-Haywood with 17 points and Jessica Flanery with 10. Brown-Haywood had a double-double as she also corralled in 10 boards.

Overall, the Eagles were able to out-rebound the Red Wolves 39-36, improving off the glass from Thursday's game in Little Rock where Georgia Southern secured just 16 total boards. While the Eagles turned the ball over 17 times in the game, they were able to hold onto the ball better in the second half, committing just six turnovers in the second half.

For the game, Arkansas State shot 45.6% (31-68) en route to securing a school record 20^th-straight home win. The Eagles went 22-for-58 (.379) from the field but struggled from three-point range, converting just two of their 11 attempts despite having several open looks.

THE STORY
The Eagles were able to capitalize on a slow start by Arkansas State early on, racing out to a four-point, 6-2 lead just three-and-a-half minutes into the contest. After converting the first shot of the game, the Red Wolves had a span of several minutes where they failed to make seven shots in a row at one point. But the shots eventually began to fall for Arkansas State, and they closed the quarter out by out-scoring the Eagles 14-7.

From there, A-State was able to find more of a groove, shooting an impressive 61.5% (8-13) from the field in the second quarter while the Eagles struggled to convert their attempts, going 3-for-15 (.200) in the stanza.

The second half saw a much closer game between the two as the Red Wolves out-scored Georgia Southern by just four points, 38-34 in the half. The second half also saw a much more clean game as Georgia Southern was not whistled for a foul in the third quarter and there were just six total fouls in the fourth quarter. On the same note, the Eagles turned the ball over fewer times in the second half and had a much better half shooting the ball, going 13-for-28 (.464) from the field.

QUOTABLES FROM COACH DROWN
"When you play a team like Arkansas State you have to play hard the entire 40 minutes because they are a very solid team," said head coach Kip Drown. "They went on a big run there in the second quarter and that was really the key when they out-scored us 23-7 and they forced some big turnovers. I felt like they really picked up the defensive pressure in the second quarter compared to the first quarter. But I really felt like we adapted a lot better in the second half and we did some things well. I saw some things tonight that showed we were really competing hard. Part of that was us out-rebounding them for the game. The two things that really stood out were the turnovers where they had 17 points in the first half off of those turnovers, and the second thing was we just didn't shoot the ball very well even though I thought, for the most part, we got some really good looks. I just take a lot more positives from this game and we will hopefully work hard this coming week in practice and come ready to play against UT Arlington on Thursday."

On Trellanie English-Lurry having a career night
"Any time you have a team that generates the kind of exterior pressure that they were, you have to do one of two things: you have to drive the ball at them or you have to get the ball inside to your post players," Drown stated. "We had a little trouble tonight getting the ball inside to our posts, but I thought we were a lot more aggressive attacking off the dribble and that's one of the stronger things that Trell does. She dribbles very well and attacks and that really showed tonight."

On what he takes away from the game moving forward
"I thought we competed really well right from the start today and were getting after the ball off of the glass really well," said Drown. "We out-rebounded them for the game and that's one of the big keys to any game. I thought tonight was a totally different game from an energy standpoint and any time you get the type of competiveness we showed tonight, you can hopefully build off of that and keep getting better."

NEXT UP
Georgia Southern returns home next week for a pair of Sun Belt Conference games against the two schools from Texas to open the month of February. It will also mark the second go-around through the conference. The Eagles will first welcome UT Arlington to Statesboro on Thursday, Feb. 4 for a 5:00 p.m. contest before Texas State comes to town on Saturday, Feb. 6. The game with the Bobcats will be a 4:05 p.m. tipoff and will also serve as the Eagles' annual Pink Game.


Georgia Southern Athletics provides up-to-date information on all its sports through its official website, GSEagles.com, through social media channels facebook.com/GSAthletics, twitter.com/GSAthletics, iOS app Georgia Southern Eagles and Android app Eagles GATA. For tickets to Georgia Southern athletics events, visit GSEagles.com/tickets.