The Book Lady Cajuns basketball 2002-03

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Champioship Game

LOUISIANA

Cincinnati, Ohio

Cincinnati

55 68 Lady Cajuns finish 2nd in the Bearcat Invitational

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CINCINNATI, Ohio---Carolyn Alexander erupted for a career-high 23 points and added 10 rebounds en route to tournament most valuable player honors as the University of Cincinnati women’s basketball team won the Bearcat Invitational for the seventh time in as many tries, topping Louisiana Lafayette 68-55 on Sunday. The win improves the Bearcats’ record to 7-2, while ULL falls to 3-6 with the defeat.

The Bearcats broke open a one-point game with a 12-0 run over the final four minutes of play to secure the win. Alexander and Valerie King both came up big down the stretch, as each scored five points to push the Bearcats to victory.

Debbie Merrill scored 16 points and added six rebounds, while K.B. Sharp had six points, eight assists and five rebounds to join Alexander on the all-tournament team. ULL’s Charlotte Green (21 points) and Anna Petrakova (16 points, 13 rebounds) were all-tournament choices for the Ragin’ Cajuns.

“Defensively we stepped it up in the second half,” said Bearcat head coach Laurie Pirtle. “We came out lethargic and gave up some easy drives. We definitely turned up the intensity in the second half.”

Brittani Young keyed the Bearcats in the game’s early going, with two baskets helping Cincinnati to a 6-4 lead. Green heated up early for the Cajuns, with a pair of baskets of her own in the first five minutes of play.

With the score knotted at 10 just over five minutes in, ULL pieced together a 7-2 run to open up a five-point advantage. Green continued her assault on the Bearcats with her first triple of the game, while also adding a two-point basket.

After a King score got Cincinnati to back within three, ULL went on another run, this time a 6-0 spurt to open its largest lead of the half at nine, with 7:57 remaining. Petrakova got into the act during this Cajun spurt with two of the four baskets.

Cincinnati scored seven of the next nine points, with Alexander contributing four of those, but a lay-up by Tammie White kept the UL Lafayette lead at 28-21 with 4:09 showing on the clock.

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Congrats to . . .

Charlotte Green

Anna Petrakova

. . . fo their hard work and making the make the BearCat All-Tournament Team.

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Advertiser

CINCINNATI - The Louisiana women's basketball team gave the University of Cincinnati a scare on Sunday afternoon, but fell in the championship game of the Bearcat Invitational 68-55 to Cincinnati.

Anna Petrakova scored eight straight points to preserve the Cajuns second half lead at 50-49 until K.B. Sharp hit a three-pointer a to give the Bearcats a two-point edge.

Charlotte Green then hit a long jumper to tie the score at 52-52 with five minutes remaining in the game.

Petrakova fouled out with less than four minutes remaining and the momentum immediately shifted to Cincinnati. The Bearcats went on a 12-0 run over the final four minutes to seal the win.

Green led the Cajuns with 21 points on 9-for-12 shooting. She finished the tournament with 43 points on 17-of-25 shooting and was named to the All-Tournament Team.

Petrakova recorded her second straight double-double with 16 points and 12 rebounds. She finished the tournament with 32 points, on 13-of-25 shooting, and added 22 rebounds to earn All-Tournament Team honors as well.

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ARKANSAS 75 - LOUISIANA 57

The numbers were the same but the results were different.

Arkansas forward Shanna Harmon supplied the spark for the Lady Razorbacks, hitting 3 three-pointers in the opening minutes of the second half.

The number 11 ranked team in the country plodded early and pulled away late in a 75-57 victory over Louisiana's Lady Cajuns before a croud of 3,599 at Alltel Arena on Monday night.

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Advertiser-Bruce Brown
LAFAYETTE - Louisiana has to find a way to score. If not, it's going to be a long season in women's basketball.

Coach J. Kelley Hall's Ragin' Cajuns suffered a second straight Sun Belt Conference loss at home on Thursday, 62-37 to South Alabama.

Paired with last week's 54-41 defeat by New Mexico State, offensive woes have put the squad in a catch-up position in the league chase.

"We've got to score more than that," Hall said after his team shot an anemic 27.5 percent against USA.

The Cajuns get another chance to get back in the race at 7 p.m. today when they host the New Orleans Privateers, a team that can identify with UL's recent woes.

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Advertiser-Dan McDonald

LAFAYETTE - Louisiana's women's basketball squad has had several games this year in which inside play was not up to par.

On Saturday night, it was nonexistent.

The Ragin' Cajun post players - starters and substitutes combined - managed only seven points, and that and a sticky New Orleans defense combined to give the Privateers a 65-52 Sun Belt Conference win at Long Gym.

The Lady Cajuns (3-10, 0-3 Sun Belt), losing their fifth straight, got three double-figure performances from the perimeter, but that wasn't enough to overcome a New Orleans lead that reached 18 points early in the second half.

"Our goal at the start of the year was to get 40 points a game from our post players," said a disappointed head coach J. Kelley Hall. "We get seven and two offensive rebounds tonight.

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The McNeese CowGirls are 3-9 and struggling. This may be the Lady Cajuns best chance to right the ship and get back on the winning track.

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Advertiser-Dan McDonald

LAKE CHARLES - Better shooting, more consistent rebounding, and greater production from the post players ... it's a lot of improvements to ask for in a short amount of time.

But that's the challenge Louisiana head women's basketball coach J. Kelley Hall has put in front of his Lady Cajun squad for tonight's road contest at McNeese State.

The Cajuns (3-10) venture out of Sun Belt Conference play for the next-to-last time this season in tonight's 7 p.m. contest at MSU's Burton Coliseum, and will look to snap a five-game loss streak continued on Saturday in a 65-52 league setback against New Orleans.

Hall, though, saw improvement in his team's Monday drills.

"We responded pretty well," he said. "We're still working on our shooting percentage and rebounding the ball, but I think we'll do those better on Tuesday."

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Seems as Mcneese failed to schedule refs.....The same ones from the men's game should have been available.

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Advertiser-Dan McDonald

LAFAYETTE - One year ago, Anna Petrakova faced a world of uncertainty.

Her 17th birthday found her in a new country with no real friends, surrounded by strangers and trying to adapt to college life as a mid-term enrollee.

She also was thrust into a world of basketball that was foreign to her, trying to pick up in days what the rest of the UL Lafayette women's team had been working on for months. And not only was she expected to catch up in a hurry, but she also was being viewed as a major contributor to a struggling team.

More than one person has run home to the comfort of parents when faced with such challenges. But it's a long run to Russia.

Home and parents were thousands of miles away in Moscow, where Petrakova had only recently graduated from High School 142.

She did have a sister living in Baton Rouge, but there had to be times that the Atchafalaya Basin looked as wide as the Atlantic Ocean that separated her from her loved ones.

"Everything was different," Petrakova said this week. "Just adjusting to the American lifestyle, everything about school, all of it."

But Petrakova's will was just as strong as her athletic 6-foot-3 frame, and opposing players in the Sun Belt Conference are only beginning to discover both of those strengths.

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Advertiser

MIAMI - Louisiana's Lady Cajun basketball team is still looking for its first Sun Belt win of the season.

The Cajun women remained winless in league play, after dropping a 79-48 decision to Florida International on Saturday night in Miami.

A 17-0 run by the Golden Panthers in the opening minutes of the second half spelled doom for the Cajuns.

The second half started with an offensive rebound and basket in the paint by FIU, then a three-pointer by Ivelina Vrancheva - producing a deficit the Cajuns worked hard to trim - but was up to 11 points in just one minute.

The Lady Cajuns fell behind by 23 points with 15:27 left. UL committed five turnovers, not scoring a single point, trailing 53-30 with less than five minutes gone in the second half.

Cormisha Cotton, who had 18 points and seven rebounds last season vs. the Cajuns, led FIU with 20 points and 12 rebounds.

Cotton scored 18 points and grabbed eight boards in the first half. Vrancheva recorded six points and four assists during the FIU 17-0 run and finished the game with 12 points and 11 assists.

Sarah Richey and Sharee Glenn led the Cajuns with 14 points apiece, although both scored 12 points in the first half. Charlotte Green was held to three points, and now needs 42 for 1,000 in her career.

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