Women’s Basketball heads to RRAC Finals against LSUS after taking down XULA

ALEXANDRIA, La. (WNTZ) – The Louisiana State University of Alexandria women’s basketball team took down Xavier (La.), 70-63 to earn a spot in the Red River Athletic Conference Basketball Tournament Final.

“Just a battle all night,” LSUA Head Coach Billy Perkins said. “Through the course of the year we’ve been trying to finish all four quarters. I thought tonight we played four good ones. We kind of gave up some easy baskets right there at the end but part of that was game plan as we wanted to take away the threes. It’s the maturity of these seniors that got us where we need to be and made big plays when we needed big plays.

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It is the first time the Generals (23-7, 17-6 RRAC) have made the Tournament Final in a full-length season.

“I think we just work so hard,” Dannah Martin-Hartwick said. “Everything we’ve done since August, everything we’ve done the last three years, it’s all been leading up to this moment. There’s so much time put in from everyone on the team from our coaching staff to our manager Shelby, everybody puts in so much time. I think this is a testament to the hard work and every storm we’ve weathered through the season.”

Martin-Hartwick recorded a team-high 22 points and finished 8-for-11 from the field, including knocking down both of her shots from long range. Jewel Jones (14), Benedetta Peracchi (12), and Justice Young (12) scored in double digits.

The Generals shot 53.2% as a team and converted 17 shots at the free throw line. They outscored Xavier in three of the contest’s four quarters.

LSUA stormed out to an eight-point lead in the first five minutes of play, but the Gold Nuggets halved the gap at the buzzer. In the second, Xavier managed to bring the game within two points but a 6-0 LSUA run to close the period sent the Purple and Gold into the locker room leading by eight, 33-25.

Another Generals’ run, this one 9-2, pushed LSUA’s lead to 42-27 midway through the third. The double-digit lead extended into the fourth quarter, before an early jumper in the final stanza narrowed the gap to nine. After the Generals worked their way to a 14-point lead with 6:23 left in regulation, a nine-point swing for XULA cut the difference to five with 3:25 left in regulation.

With just over two minutes left, the Gold Nuggets converted a layup to be within two, 65-63. A layup from Peracchi and a pair of free throws from Reese Stephens put the Generals up by two possessions to seal the game.

The Generals take on top-seed LSU Shreveport at 4:30 p.m. on Sunday, March 2, at the Laborde Earles Coliseum in Alexandria.

LSUS rolled to an 81-61 victory over Texas A&M-San Antonio in the semifinals. Selma Markisic recorded a team-high 21 points, while Helena Galunic (14), Alexis Brown (12), and Racheal Emmanuel (12) also recorded more than 10 points. Emmanuel recorded 14 rebounds off the bench, 11 coming off the offensive glass. The Pilots shot 44.3% as a unit. LSUS won both regular season meetings between the Generals and Pilots, though the second meeting was just a one-point differential, 62-61, in the regular season finale.