Lady Toppers defeat UAB in Diddle Arena 59-51

The mighty Western Kentucky Lady Toppers and head coach Michelle Clark-Heard were in action against a middle of the road UAB team tonight inside of E.A. Diddle Arena.

The Lady Tops opened the game strong, taking a 12-5 lead with 15:59 remaining in the first half after a three from Kendall Noble. UAB then rallied, like most teams do against the Lady Tops, and made the game 12-11 at the 12 minute mark of the first half.  The rest of the half was pretty back-and-forth, as the Lady Toppers took a 31-28 lead into the break.

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Then came the second twenty minutes…and the Lady Blazers. Things got really interesting, as the Lady Tops only held a 49-41 lead with 9:04 to go after a layup by UAB’s Kayla Anderson. After that layup, there was a three-minute scoring drought, but the Lady Toppers started scoring again and took a 58-51 lead with 1:17 left to play in the game. UAB then started the fouling stage, WKU missed most, but pulled it out, winning 59-51 over UAB.

The Lady Blazers actually shot better from the floor than the Lady Tops did. UAB put up a 38% mark form the floor and 40% from three while WKU only put up 36.7% and 31.6% marks. The only edge the Lady Toppers had was from the free throw line, and that was only barely – 56.3% to 55.6%.

Despite the dismal team shooting, the Lady Toppers were lead by four double figure scorers – lead by Alexis Govan with 17 points – compared to just one in Chelsee Black for UAB, who had 14.

The Lady Toppers will next play host to Middle Tennessee on Saturday at 2 p.m. (CT) inside of E.A. Diddle Arena.