On Thursday night, the SIU women’s basketball team (4-6, 1-0 MVC) kicked off their Missouri Valley Conference season with a road matchup against Evansville (5-4, 0-1 MVC). The Salukis ushered a big comeback win in the fourth quarter with 31 points coming in the last frame to finish with a 86-77 final.

Five different Salukis finished with double digit point totals. Graduate Student Ashley Jones led the way with 23, sophomore Laniah Randle trailed her with 16, junior Shemera Williams and freshman Jaidynn Mason added 12 each, and sophomore Tyranny Brown went 3/3 adding 10 more points.

A quick start for the Dawgs gave them a 7-1 lead after nearly three minutes of play, but a layup in the paint gave the Aces a boost to take a momentary lead at 13-12 after a three pointer. They brought that up to a five point lead after a couple Saluki fouls gave them some free throw opportunities.

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In the second, slowly but surely, the Salukis would inch away at the Evansville lead. A Laniah Randle layup mixed with two free throws and a fastbreak layup in the paint by Jaidynn Mason helped the Salukis finish out the first half down just one at 30-29.

Southern would regain the lead momentarily to start the second half with a layup by Williams, but in just 25 seconds, the Aces were backup by four after a quick layup and a steal leading to a three pointer. The teams traded blows for a while, until an 11-1 run by Evansville put them up by 11 points midway through the third at 50-39. But the Dawgs weren’t out of it yet, as they went on a 10-2 run of their own to get back into the swing of things and down by only two heading into the final frame.

The fourth was where the SIU offense exploded. Laniah Randle’s layup jolted the Saluki offense to nine points in a row to go up by seven quickly. A couple fouls let the Aces hang in the game for a while, but a steal by Jones leading to a layup put the dawgs up by eight with less than three to play and it was foul time from there, as SIU took down the Aces in their first conference game of the season.

The Dawgs will look to make it 2-0 in the conference season on Saturday when they travel to Terre Haute to take on Indiana State to ring in the new year.

Sports editor Joseph Bernard can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @Jojobernard2001. 

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