Hot Springs, Ark. — Alysha Clark scored a Sun Belt Conference
Tournament record 44 points on Monday as the Blue Raiders eliminated
the Western Kentucky University women‘s basketball team from the event with a 76-63 win in the semifinals.

MTSU (24-5) will advance to meet top-seeded UALR at 1 p.m. (CST)
Tuesday in the title game. The Lady Toppers will await word on a
postseason berth with a 21-10 record.

“I appreciate the effort that our young ladies continued with in the
second, but obviously it wasn’t enough after what we did to ourselves
in the first half and the way we got ourselves down 15 at halftime,”
said Lady Topper head coach Mary Taylor Cowles. “I think they really
demonstrated something special about WKU and Lady Topper basketball and that is simply an attitude of just we are not going to quit – and that as a head coach makes me very, very proud.”

The Lady Toppers hit two of their first three shots in the contest, but
then missed 11 straight as Middle Tennessee went on a 13-0 run to open up a 20-4 lead on a Brandi Brown three at the 10:36 mark. Clark
finished the half with 23 of MTSU’s 37 points, and gave the Blue
Raiders their largest lead of the half at 20 points when a layup made
it a 26-6 score at the 8:41 left before intermission.

A pair of Amy McNear free throws sparked an 11-0 Lady Topper run as WKU got as close as nine points when an Arnika Brown layup made it a 26-17 score with 4:15 on the clock. That would be as close as the Lady Toppers would get, however, as MTSU stretched its lead back out to 15 points at intermission.

Dominique Duck scored the first six points of the second half as WKU
again got within nine points less than two minutes into the period.
But again the Lady Toppers could get no closer as Middle used a 14-2
run to pull out to a game-high 21 points lead when a Clark three-point
play made it 51-30 with 15:06 remaining.

The Lady Toppers refused to go away, however, getting the deficit down to 15 points when a Kenzie Rich three made it a 53-38 game with 11:27 to go. MTSU again pushed the lead to 20 midway through the half, but WKU was again able to chip away and make it a 10-point game when Rich knocked down third three of the game to make it a 71-61 contest with 2:07 to go.

The run would end there, however, as the Middle Tennessee was able to trade baskets down the stretch and pick up the 13-point win.

Rich scored all of her team-high 20 points in the second half, becoming
the first Lady Topper to score 20 points in a period since Arnika Brown
did so in the 2008-09 season opener against Murray State. McNear added 15 points to go along with a team-best six assists and eight assists, while Duck finished with 10 points. Only four players scored for Middle Tennessee, with Brown and Anne Marie Lanning each scoring 12 and Chelsia Lymon adding eight to go along with Clark’s 44.