Middle Tennessee State University Athletics
Middle Tennessee
22-9
UAB
25-6
Team Stats
Game Leaders
Players Mentioned
Hayes' career high sends Lady Raiders into title game
3/15/2019 11:43:00 PM | Women's Basketball
Senior pours in career-high 34 points
FRISCO, Texas – A'Queen Hayes saved her best for the biggest game of the season to date and, as a result, Middle Tennessee will be playing for the C-USA Championship against No. 24-ranked Rice Saturday at 4:30 p.m.
Hayes poured in a career-high 34 points on 13-of-23 shooting and grabbed a game-high 12 rebounds for her eighth double-double of the season. Hayes, who played all 40 minutes, was most outstanding in the second half when the game was on the line. The senior transfer was 9-of-11 from the field in the second half when she scored 23 of her points.
Only nine players in the history of the C-USA Championship have scored more than Hayes did with her 34 points, which was just nine points shy of the tournament record.
"I have been doing this for more than 40 years, and I have seen some great players make great plays, but I saw Queen make a couple moves tonight that I haven't seen before," Head Coach Rick Insell said. "Everyone needs a Queen, and I'm glad we have ours.
"I am just really proud of our young ladies. They really played well and they had to in order to secure this victory against a very good UAB team."
Taylor Sutton also flexed her muscles and poured in 17 points on 6-of-12 shooting, including a 3-of-5 mark from beyond the arc. She also dished out three assists and collected a pair of steals in 38 minutes of action.
It was the 18th double-figure scoring game of the season for Sutton and the 10th against C-USA competition.
Their efforts were paramount considering Alex Johnson was saddled with her third foul early in the second quarter. She only played nine minutes in the first half and 27 for the game, contributing seven points, five rebounds, four assists and three steals.
Jess Louro, Anna Jones, Charity Savage and Jordan Majors also supplied solid play in victory. Louro added six points on two big fourth-quarter 3-pointers, including the dagger with 1:21 remaining to push the advantage back to nine, 71-62, after UAB had cut a 15-point deficit to six.
Jones added five points, three assists, one block and one steal, while Savage added four points and three rebounds in relief of Johnson in the second quarter. It was Savage's second field goal that enabled Middle Tennessee to take a 37-36 advantage into the locker room at halftime. Majors added five rebounds and dished out two assists.
Middle Tennessee continued its strong shooting in the tournament with a 49 percent shooting performance, knocking down 28-of-57 shots. More impressive was the shooting effort from beyond the 3-point arc, where the Lady Raiders were 9-of-14 for 64.3 percent.
NOTES: The Lady Raiders are averaging 70.5 points in two C-USA Championship games, which is tops among the competing teams. They are allowing just 54.5 points … MT is shooting 46 percent in the tourney, converting 52-of-113 shots, which is tops in the tourney, and its .459 percentage (17-of-37) from 3-point range is also first … MT improved to 10-3 all-time in the C-USA Championship and 61-22 all-time in conference tournament action … They Lady Raiders are now 29-6 in conference tourney action under Insell … The Lady Raiders are making their 23rd appearance in a conference tournament championship game .. Hayes averaged 23 points and 10.3 rebounds in three games against UAB this season … The Lady Raiders in the C-USA title game for the third time in six years in the conference, winning the title in 2014 and 2016.
