STATESBORO  – UT Arlington raced out to a 28-point opening quarter to knock off Georgia Southern, 74-53, in Sun Belt Conference women's basketball action on Saturday afternoon at Hanner Fieldhouse.

The Mavericks improved to 9-4 overall and 1-1 in the Sun Belt with the win, while Georgia Southern (5-8, 0-2 SBC) suffered its third straight loss.

UT Arlington finished the day shooting 56.6 percent from the floor, a season high for Eagle opponents. The Mavericks hit 30-of-53 shots from the floor, compared to Georgia Southern, who hit just 17-of-51 shots (33.3 percent).

Three Mavericks reached double figures on the day, led by Cierra Johnson's game-high 18 points on 7-of-8 shooting. Georgia Southern placed two players in double figures - Tatum Barber (13 points) and Alexis Brown (11 points).

Eagle of the Game 
Hailey Dias-Allen had nine points and tied a career high with nine rebounds in 35 minutes of action against the Mavericks. She also had three assists.

Key moment
UT Arlington opened the game on a 12-2 run, opening up a double-digit lead just three and a half minutes into the contest. The Eagles cut the lead to eight, 38-30, at the break, but the Mavericks opened up the third quarter on another 12-2 run to lead, 50-32, and cruise to the victory.

Stat of the Game
Georgia Southern was perfect from the foul line, hitting 12-of-12 from the charity stripe. The last time the Eagles were perfect on free throws was on Feb. 8, 2018, when GS hit 13-of-13 free throws against UL Monroe in a 75-45 win.

QUOTABLES
Head coach Kip Drown on the UTA offense
"We lost the basketball game in the first four minutes of the first quarter and the first four minutes of the third quarter. In the matter of about nine-10 minutes, we had the basketball game open up on us. We were digging ourselves out of a whole all day."

On the task ahead the rest of the way
"We still have 16 games left in the conference, a ton of time. But since we blew an opening weekend at home, you have to go to Louisiana and find a way to come out with a sweep. If we get two wins, we can get it back to .500 coming back home. That's our focus. But we've got to get better at some things. I'm disappointed with our execution, with things we do all the time that we step on the floor and we've got that deer in the headlights look. We spend hours and ours drilling, but the execution is disappointing from a coaching standpoint."

Next up
The Eagles return to action on Thursday, visiting UL Monroe in a 7:30 p.m. Sun Belt Conference matchup in Monroe, La.