NEW ORLEANS –
Monique Townson is never counted on to score big points for the Little Rock women's basketball team.
But in the Sun Belt Tournament quarterfinals on Thursday, Townson had the best offensive game of her career.
The junior guard put up a career-high 19 points and added seven assists, helping top-seeded Little Rock to a 69-53 victory over No. 9 Appalachian State at Lakefront Arena.
Townson went 3 of 6 from the 3-point line, making all three of her 3-pointers in the first half to keep Little Rock in the game as Appalachian State jumped out to an early lead. Townson tied her career high in made 3-pointers with that performance and surpassed her previous career high of 16 points.
Little Rock (24-7) got a team-high 20 points from
Kaitlyn Pratt, and the senior also grabbed eight rebounds.
Ronjanae DeGray scored 11 and led Little Rock with nine rebounds, and
Sharde' Collins scored 11 points and brought down six boards as the Trojans ended the year for Appalachian State (12-19)
The Trojans will now advance to Saturday's semifinal game, playing either No. 4 Texas State or No. 5 Louisiana at 5 p.m. on ESPN3.
Little Rock trailed 26-21 with five minutes remaining in the second quarter against Appalachian State, but that may have been the turning point early as Coach
Joe Foley took a timeout to regroup his team. After that timeout, Little Rock went on a 7-0 run and took the lead for the first time in more than 10 minutes. That offensive momentum continued for the rest of the half, and Little Rock was ahead 33-32 at the break.
In the first half, Townson scored 11 points to keep the Trojans in the game.
Little Rock started the first half hot, increasing its lead to 8 points in the first five minutes with a basket by Collier, two Pratt baskets, a Townson jumper, a DeGray free throw and another Collier jumper. The Little Rock defense also held strong in the quarter, keeping the Mountaineers to just 11 points and helping extend the lead to 53-43 entering the final frame.
The Trojans would eventually pad their lead to as many as 16 points by game's end as they shot 48.3 percent (14-29) from the field in the second half while holding the Mountaineers to just 32.0 percent (8-25).
Collier had another strong rebounding game, grabbing seven boards. She also added 6 points and four assists. As a team, Little Rock had 23 total assists and just six turnovers. Little Rock also outrebounded App State 44-33.
Little Rock now advances to the conference semifinals which will be held on Saturday at 5 p.m. The Trojans will face either No. 4 seed Texas State or No. 5 seed Louisiana with a trip to the Sun Belt championship game on the line.
