Jakob Milani
Staff Writer
For the first time since 2000 and the first time in OVC history, the Murray State women’s basketball team defeated the Belmont Bruins 72-66 on Tuesday, Jan, 19.
The Racers got off to a hot start with a 9-0 run to go up 9-2 over the Bruins.
Belmont answered with its own 14-1 run to take a 16-13 lead with 2:26 to go in the first quarter. The Bruins held their lead, going into the second quarter up 19-15.
The Racers were able to get their defense going toward the end of the second quarter, not allowing Belmont to score in the final 4:03 of the quarter. In that time, the Racers scored eight points to take the lead. Thanks to its defense, Murray State led Belmont at halftime 33-30.
Senior forward Laci Hawthorne led the Racers at halftime with 10 points and five rebounds. The Bruins were led at halftime by junior forward Conley Chinn, who had 10 points on 4-5 shooting, all of which came in the first quarter.
The second half was close as both teams traded shots throughout the half. The Bruins managed to get hot, making six of their 10 shots taken by the 2:57 mark of the third quarter.
The Racers still kept the game close, making six of their last seven shots of the quarter. Junior guard Macey Turley scored 11 points in the quarter and shot 3-3 from three-point-range, keeping the Racers in charge 53-50 heading into the fourth quarter.
Belmont shot just 6-20 in the fourth, scoring 16 points with the addition of three made free throws.
Murray State also struggled, shooting just 2-10 in the quarter, but the Racers scored 19 points thanks to a 15-18 clip from the charity stripe.
With that advantage, Murray State defeated Belmont 72-66, claiming a historic OVC victory.
Turley finished with 24 points, tying her career high in points. She shot 6-12 from the field, 4-5 from three-point-range and 8-8 from the free throw line, extending her streak of consecutive free throws made to 41. She spoke postgame about the team’s performance in the game.
“It’s just incredible, seeing us get that win,” Turley said. “It really hurt at Martin because we were just so close. We’ve been talking about sparking that fire and I think [we] sparked it at UT Martin and we just kept going tonight. I think we have so many weapons. Having Katelyn down low in the post really gives us an inside-out look, so that really helps us. We just gotta keep focusing on playing eight five-minute games, which is what coach was telling us in the beginning of the pre-game. Just cutting down the quarters into separate games and hopefully winning as much as we can.”
Turley also spoke on finally getting a win against Belmont for the first time in her three-year career.
“It feels great,” Turley said. “We threw some water on coach in the locker room. We’re gonna celebrate this win for a couple of days, but we gotta get ready for Jacksonville State.”
Head Coach Rechelle Turner also spoke about how meaningful the win over Belmont is, marking her first as head coach of the Racers.
“I just couldn’t be more proud of these kids,” Turner said. “The look on their faces after the game and the excitement was worth it all to me. They work hard. We’ve been close, we know we’ve been close. Coach Monica has been saying ‘We’re close, we’re close,’ and to be able to come here today and perform like we did and be able to pull out this win—it’s a signature win for our program, but hopefully it’s just a stepping stone for these players to understand that when we are at our best, we can play with anyone.”
Turner said Turley’s injury from last season has hindered her play, but now she is starting to get back to her usual self.
“She is our glue,” Turner said. “Early in the year I didn’t want to make excuses for her because she wouldn’t let me, but she didn’t get very many reps in the pre-season because of her surgery and her injury, so she wasn’t ready when the season started. She said ‘Coach, I don’t want you to make excuses for me. I gotta play better,’ but she has just had a totally different mindset in the last couple of weeks. She’s putting this team on her shoulders, she is accountable for everything she does not do well. She doesn’t take enough credit for what she does well, but we are going off of her energy. She is our spark.”
Murray State finished with four players in double digits, including Turley (24), Hawthorne (11), freshman forward Katelyn Young (13) and junior forward Alexis Burpo (10) off the bench.
Young grabbed 16 rebounds, while Burpo grabbed seven rebounds, helping the Racers win the rebound battle over Belmont 42-32. Turner touched on the teams rebounding success after the game.
“Rebounding has been a big key,” Turner said. “We told them today that we had to win the rebounding battle… If we lost the rebounding battle, we would lose the war. And Katelyn was just unbelievable today on the boards. It felt like she got all of them… we just did a really good job. Early we didn’t rebound the ball as well, but in the second half I felt like they got one shot and were done, and that’s what you have to do. They are too good of a basketball team to give them more opportunities, so being able to rebound the ball, go down the floor and make plays, that’s what it’s all about.”
Murray State improves to 6-6 on the season after winning its third away game this year and its first away game over Belmont in the team’s history.
The Racers, who are now 3-4 in conference play, will take on Jacksonville State at home on Thursday, Jan. 21, at 4:30 p.m.
