By Katherine Jamtgaard for App State Sports. BOONE, N.C. – The App State women’s basketball team defeated ULM 77-63 in its regular season finale on Feb. 24, while honoring Brooke Bigott, A’Lea Gilbert, Janay Sanders and Summer Schloss for Senior Day.
Five Mountaineers recorded double-figure points, led by Sanders’ 15. Sophomore Zada Porter posted her first career double-double, scoring 12 points and pulling down a team-high 10 rebounds. Gilbert and junior Faith Alston netted 11 points each, and freshman Chaé Harris recorded 10 points. Porter and Alston led the team in assists, dishing out four each.
The Mountaineers broke their program record for 3-pointers made in a season, recording nine treys for a total of 223 this season. The previous record was 215, set during the 2018-19 season. App State caused 21 ULM turnovers, scoring 20 points off of those turnovers. The Mountaineers also held the Warhawks to three 3-pointers over the course of the game. Forty of the Black and Gold’s 77 points came from the bench.
Gilbert put App State on the board early with the Mountaineer’s 215th trey of the season, tying the previous program record. Not long after, Porter sunk a 3-point bucket, pushing App State over the record’s edge. Senior Taylor Lewis and Harris drilled back-to-back treys to put App State up 15-13 over ULM in the first period.
App State went on a 9-0 scoring run with contributions from Sanders, Gilbert, and Carver to take a 26-24 lead over the Warhawks. ULM tied things up at 26, but a layup from Porter gave App State a 28-26 edge. A Sanders layup and Alston trey put App State up 33-29 at the half.
Carver opened the third quarter with a trey to extend App State’s lead to 36-31. Gilbert and Sanders promptly added back-to-back layups that put App State up 40-35 over the Warhawks. As the Warhawks closed in on the Mountaineers’ lead, Harris landed a jumper to keep App State ahead 43-40. Carver sunk an effortless trey, which Alston followed up with a layup that extended App State’s lead to 51-43. As the Mountaineers faced a scoring drought, ULM cut the Mountaineers’ lead to one. With seven seconds remaining in the quarter, Porter got to the hoop for two. Harris was quick to jump in for a steal at three seconds, making a last-second layup to put App State up 55-50 at the end of the third period.
The Mountaineers came out hot in the final quarter as Harris drilled a 3-point bucket, which was followed by back-to-back layups from Gilbert and Porter. Frazier, Alston and Sanders contributed to an 8-0 scoring run that extended App State’s lead to 72-58. Bigott and Gilbert scored the Mountaineers’ final five points as they cruised to the home victory.
UP NEXT
The Mountaineers will head to Pensacola, Fla. for the Sun Belt Tournament, Feb. 28- March 6. The tournament bracket will be announced later this evening. App State is projected to take the No. 10 or No. 11 seed and holds the tiebreaker against the current 10th-place team, Arkansas State.
