Albany State women fall to Kentucky State

ALBANY — The Albany State Lady Rams basketball team brought some of their old habits into the new year as they dropped their first game of 2015 to Kentucky State 61-52 Saturday at the HPER Gym.

The game was tied at 10 with 11 minutes left in first half before KSU scored a basket to take a 12-10 lead. ASU’s Kayla Green answered with a 3-pointer, followed by a Mecca Frost lay-up to give the Lady Rams at 15-12 lead with 9:23 left in the half.

The lead would be short-lived, however, as Frost picked up her second foul with 8:14 left and was forced to sit the remainder of the half. Foul trouble plagued ASU the entire game as Artisha Holston was forced to sit a significant portion of the second half after picking up her fourth foul with 12:10 left.

ASU head coach Robert Skinner said having to sit both Frost and Holston threw off his team’s offensive rhythm.

“We weren’t able to run our offense like we wanted to,” he said. “It shouldn’t have affected us, but it did and we gotta find some answers to that. We gotta be able to play when Mecca’s on the court or when Artisha’s on the court, and when they’re not on the court, we still gotta be able to capitalize and make things happen. We just weren’t able to do that today.”

The Lady Rams started the second half down 31-27. KSU’s Shaquandra Wiggins completed a 3-point play to extend the lead to seven. Green knocked down another timely trey to keep the deficit to a manageable four points, but forward Jillian Anderson picked up her third foul on the play and had to come out.

KSU’s post players were a problem for the Lady Rams as Wiggins, Logan Powell and Teeuntra Moore scored a combined 32 points and drew about 10 fouls on ASU’s frontcourt.

“We weren’t watching the man and the ball,” Skinner said in regards to his team’s foul trouble. “We kept losing either one or the other.”

It was still a 44-38 game when Holston was forced to sit about midway through the second half, but the Lady Rams could never seem to get on the same page offensively and turnovers led to Lady Thoroughbred baskets as the lead increased to 10.

Green led the Lady Rams with 17 points, followed by Holston with 14 points and 15 rebounds. ASU remains at home on Monday to face Lane at 5:30 p.m.