NEW ORLEANS – The Loyola University New Orleans women's basketball team had a dress rehearsal Tuesday night, taking on the Tulane Green Wave in an exhibition for the Wolf Pack at Devlin Fieldhouse. Loyola, which played most of its home games last season at the Tulane arena, fell to the NCAA Division Green Wave, 88-53.
The team will now head to Babson Park, Florida, for two games at the SSAC/Sun Conference Challenge, hosted by Webber International University. The Pack will first play No. 6 Southeastern (Fla.) at 12 p.m. CDT on Friday before a 10 a.m. CDT contest against Florida Memorial on Saturday.
Jazmene McMillan got the game's first points less than a minute into the contest, and Sandra Cannady scored five points a few minutes later, the latter being a 3-pointer, to stay close behind Tulane, 9-7. Tay Cannon and Liz Critton had back-to-back made shots to tie the game, 11-11, with four minutes left in the opening frame, then Sydni Tangle gave the Pack the 14-11 lead moments later. Tulane would take the 18-16 advantage heading into the second quarter, though.
The Green Wave started the second quarter well, scoring the first 12 points to push the lead to 30-16 nearly halfway through the frame. Finally, a 3-pointer by Taylor Thomas ended the drought for the Wolf Pack. With 2:21 left until halftime and trailing 38-19, Loyola scored the final seven points to make it a 38-26 score at the break. Kennedy Hansberry scored the first five of those points, and Cannady made two free throws in the final seconds.
Thanks to scores by Cannady, Critton and Thomas, Loyola cut the Tulane lead to eight, 41-33, in the first few minutes of the second half. The Green Wave, however, quickly pushed the lead back out to 16, 49-33, to regain momentum. They'd go on to extend that score to 66-40 by the end of the frame.
Tulane was able to hold the sizeable advantage in the fourth en route to its win.
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