STATESBORO, Ga. - The Georgia Southern women's basketball team never trailed in picking up its largest win in the Sun Belt Conference era with Thursday night's 75-45 victory over visiting UL Monroe at Hanner Fieldhouse.
The Eagles (5-18, 2-10 SBC) also notched their second straight win at Hanner with the win, while the Warhawks (4-18, 1-10 SBC) dropped their eighth straight contest. Georgia Southern will try to make it three in a row at home in Sun Belt play when the Eagles host Louisiana on Saturday at 2 p.m. for Pack The House Pink day.
Alexis Foulks' layup on the first possession of the game gave the Eagles a 2-0 lead that it would not relinquish. Georgia Southern took an 18-12 lead at the end of the first quarter, then opened up the second quarter on an 8-2 run to take its largest lead of the first half, 26-14, on two free throws from Alexis Brown with 6:35 left. The Eagles would take a 36-27 lead into halftime as nine different Georgia Southern players had at least one basket in the first half.
The Eagles came out of halftime on an 14-0 run, getting a pair of three-pointers from Foulks, one from Alexis Brown and a three-point play from Hailey Dias-Allen to take a 50-27 lead with 5:51 to go in the third quarter. Georgia Southern would hold the Warhawks to just six third-quarter points and come away with the 30-point win. The win eclipses the previous biggest win in Sun Belt play for the Eagles, 21 points, set on Jan. 12 of last season in a 65-44 win at UL Monroe.
"This was a great team effort, I'm really proud," Georgia Southern Head Coach Kip Drown said. "Our biggest key tonight was to play hard, play harder than they do, come out from the start and set a tone and I think we did that from the beginning. I was really happy about that. This was another one of those confidence games that helps you grow up."
Alexis Brown finished the night with a season-high 18 points on 5-of-8 shooting from the floor, including 2-of-4 from three-point range and a perfect 6-of-6 from the free throw line to lead the Eagles offensively.
"She just had a hard fall with some injuries and some different things, but she is really starting to hit her stride now," Coach Drown said. "She's a really good player, who just plays hard. And you can tell she's getting back to the form that we saw glimpses of last year."
Foulks finished with 12 points on 4-of-8 shooting from the floor for the Eagles, including 2-of-5 three-pointers, while Rhein Beamon added 10 points off the bench on 5-of-7 shooting. UL Monroe was led by 10 points from Gabriella Cortez.
The Eagles shot 45.2 percent from the floor (28-of-62) and 28.6 percent from three-point range (6-of-21) while going a perfect 13-of-13 from the night at the free throw line - the second time this year that Georgia Southern has had a perfect game at the line. The Eagles went 6-for-6 from the line at UCF on Dec. 10, 2017.
UL Monroe shot just 33.9 percent from the floor (19-of-56) and just 12 percent from three-point range (3-of-25), while making 4-of-8 free throws for 50 percent. Georgia Southern enjoyed a 16-9 edge in points off of turnovers as the Eagles force 18 turnovers from the Warhawks.