Trojans Clinch Share of SBC Title With Win Over Eagles

LITTLE ROCK – With only two home games left in their career, seniors Sharde' Collins and Kaitlyn Pratt are making the most of their final minutes on the Jack Stephens Center floor.
 
On Thursday night, they made the most of their minutes late and helped make the Trojans into Sun Belt champions.
 
Little Rock trailed midway through the third quarter of their game with Georgia Southern, but Pratt and Collins combined for 22 points in the final 15 minutes and Little Rock went on a 15-0 run in the fourth quarter on its way to a 57-41 victory over the Eagles.
 
Little Rock (20-7, 14-1 Sun Belt Conference) clinched at least a share of the league championship with the win over Georgia Southern (12-15, 8-8), as second-place Troy was defeated at UT Arlington later on Thursday night.
 
The Trojans can clinched an outright conference championship for the second time in school history and the No. 1 seed in the league tournament on Saturday against Georgia State at 4 p.m.
 
Collins finished the Thursday with 24 points, and Pratt had 17 of her own to go along with a team-high nine rebounds. Ronjanae DeGray also finished in double figures with 12 points off the bench. Kyra Collier did not score but tied for the team lead with nine rebounds and also added a team-best six assists.
 
The win on Thursday was also Little Rock's 20th of the year, making this season Little Rock's 10th 20-win season in the last 11 years.
 
In the third quarter, Georgia Southern took its first lead of the game from the free-throw line while their field-goal shooting went cold. Collins helped Little Rock get that lead back, scoring 8 points in the final five minutes of the third quarter to take the game from a 1-point Eagles lead to a 5-point Trojan lead entering the fourth.
 
The Eagles got the Little Rock lead down to just 2 points early in the fourth, but two free throws from DeGray following by a steal-and-score from the sophomore got the Trojans back ahead 46-40 with 7:25 to play and forced an Eagles timeout. After the timeout, though, Little Rock extended its lead with a Collins 3-pointer and a Pratt layup, making it a 9-0 run and a 51-40 lead – their largest of the game – and making the Eagles take another timeout.
 
Little Rock would eventually expand that run to 15-0, putting any comeback by Georgia Southern out of the question. Georgia Southern did not score for a five-minute span before hitting a free-throw late in the game. The Eagles had 6 points in the first 90 seconds of the fourth quarter and then just 1 point in the final 8:30.
 
Monique Townson had five assists and a block on the night, and DeGray and Kira Shepard tied for the team high with two steals. Besides Pratt, Collins and DeGray, no other Trojan scored more than two points.
 
Little Rock struggled on offense in the first half, making just 37 percent of its shots from the field. But the Trojans were aided by 11 first-half turnovers by the Eagles that resulted in 10 Trojan points. Collins had 8 points at halftime to lead Little Rock.
 
The Trojans will wrap up their home schedule and hope to wrap up the Sun Belt outright regular-season championship on Saturday when they face Georgia State at 4 p.m. Senior Night festivities will be held immediately following the game, and the men's game against Georgia State will follow that.