Troy women cruise past UL-Monroe, snap two-game losing streak

Published 12:28 am Saturday, January 31, 2015

After a grueling stretch of games, five days of rest proved plenty for the Troy women to recover, dominating ULM wire-to-wire 90-51 Thursday night at Trojan Arena.

With the win, Troy (12-7, 7-3) snapped its two-game losing streak and remains in a tie for third place with Texas State.

Ronita Garrett led the Trojans, recording her third-straight double-double with 19 points and 12 rebounds. Now with 13 double-doubles this season, Garrett has broken the Troy Division I era single-season record.

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The game was never in doubt as Troy led from the very first basket of the game. The Trojan defense was just as dominant as the offense, holding ULM (8-11, 4-6) to just four points in the first 11:30 of the game. With just over eight minutes to play in the first half, Troy led comfortably, 27-4.

“This was a very good win against a good ULM team that almost beat us at their place just two weeks ago,” Troy head coach Chanda Rigby said.  “The difference in tonight’s game was our intensity and the amount of pressure we applied to them.

Ashley Beverly-Kelley, Troy’s leading scorer, finished with a game-high 23 points, including game-highs of six assists and six steals.

Coming into Thursday’s contest, Troy led the Sun Belt with 11 steals per game, but blew that mark away against ULM, tallying 23, an all-time school record. In all, Troy forced the Warhawks into 39 turnovers, scoring 41 points off of them.

Conversely, the Trojan offense took care of the basketball, turning the ball over 19 times with just 11 of ULM’s points coming off of those turnovers.

“ULM had some advantages over us coming, including in the post, but we a good gameplan and executed it perfectly,” Rigby said.

Offensively, ULM, who had won three-straight games entering Thursday, was held to just 29 percent shooting from the field.

Troy, on the other hand, doubled that mark, making 41 percent of their shots on 34-of-82 shooting from the floor.

With the win, Troy completed the season sweep of ULM after defeating the Warhawks 82-77 on the road two weeks ago.