Marshall Recap
By Sean Kelly, FM88 Sports
Jan. 19, 2025
HUNTINGTON, W. Va. (WMUL-FM) — Despite showing improvement on both sides of the ball, Marshall women’s basketball could not overcome some repeated issues during Saturday’s 68-64 home loss to the Appalachian State Mountaineers.
Seeking to bounce back from a 93-65 loss to the James Madison Dukes, the Herd started Saturday’s game with an impressive offensive turnaround. During Wednesday’s contest, the Herd shot 36% from the field and scored 26 points in the paint. On Saturday, the home side scored nearly half that in the first quarter alone. While the Mountaineers put up a frigid 22% shooting rate, the Herd dominated in the paint throughout the first quarter, scoring 12 of its 14 points from inside to end with a 14-10 lead.
In the second, Marshall continued to show improvement with its defensive play. Following a performance in which James Madison racked up 27 defensive rebounds to the Herd’s 19, the Thundering Herd collected 14 defensive boards to the Mountaineers’ 10 while scoring 11 second chance points in the process.
This strong defensive start made Saturday’s loss especially hard to stomach for Thundering Herd head coach Juli Fulks. “At some point you just can’t believe when it keeps happening,” Fulks said. “We had another really, really good start. I thought defensively we flew around and had a lot of really good coverages.”
Through the first half, two familiar faces led the Thundering Herd offense. Junior guard CC Mays and senior guard Aislynn Hayes, two of the Herd’s leading scorers during Wednesday’s battle, scored nine points each, leading their team to a three-point advantage. With consistent shooting from inside the paint and 21 total rebounds, Marshall earned its first halftime lead in five games.
After trading blows throughout the third, Marshall re-took the lead with a 7-0 run to end the quarter. Despite exiting the third quarter with momentum, it could not stay hot through the fourth. As a team, the home side went 4-of-14 from the field, while double-digit performances by the likes of Mountaineer guard Zada Porter and forward Elena Pericic kept Appalachian State a consistent shooting team.
“They were 3-of-5 from the three-point line in the fourth quarter, 6-of-13 overall, and that’s how you win fourth quarters: you make the shots that you get,” Fulks said. “We track steals. We’re trying to get two a quarter and we had three in the first, two in the second, and three in the fourth. We needed one more steal and needed to come up with a little more pressure.”
As a team, the Mountaineers shot 7-of-8 from the stripe to seal a 68-64 victory, with Porter making 4-of-5 in the fourth. However, inconsistent shooting was not the only problem the Thundering Herd faced. After letting up 29 points on 20 turnovers Wednesday night, ball-handling continued to haunt the Herd during Saturday’s loss.
“We’re turning the ball over too much,” Fulks said. “This is a team (Appalachian State) that has a lot of good guards, and so 17 turnovers is a number that is too high. I thought we’d gotten to a stretch where we were doing a much better job, back in a normal range – 12/13, but that was a lot of possessions and those matter.”
The 68-64 victory was Appalachian State’s first against Marshall since March 2019, and its first in the Cam Henderson Center since December 2017. With their second win in three games, the Mountaineers improved to a 9-8 record and 5-2 in Sun Belt Conference play.
Sitting at a 5-13 overall record, Marshall continues to play for not only its first conference win, but first victory in nearly a month. The team will aim to build on its narrow loss on Wednesday against the Georgia Southern Eagles for the third of four consecutive home games.
You can tune in to Wednesday’s contest on WMUL-FM 88.1 and online at www.marshall.edu/WMUL. FM88 Sports’ Ben Anderson and Elliot Quicke will have the call. Pregame coverage begins at 5:30 p.m. with tip-off at 6 p.m.