Final Stats

STATESBORO, Ga. - Despite several second-half comeback attempts, the Coastal Carolina women's basketball team was unable to overtake Georgia Southern as the Eagles claimed a wire-to-wire, 78-70 victory over the Chanticleers Thursday night inside Hanner Fieldhouse.

Georgia Southern (6-11, 2-4) took advantage of the hot hands of its leading scorers for this season, Angel McGowan and Patrice Butler. The former notched 21 points on 5-of-10 from the field and 9-of-11 from the line, and the latter added 20 points on 9-of-17 from the field. Nakol Franks rounded out Georgia Southern's top three scorers with 15 points, and led the Eagles with a trio of 3-pointers.

Coastal (7-9, 2-4) set a season high in both 3-pointers made and 3-point attempts with 12 and 29, respectively. The former high was five makes from beyond the arc.

Kennedy Archer led the way with five 3-pointers, and added two baskets inside the arc to lead the Chants with 19 points. Jas Adams notched four 3-pointers and totaled 14 points, and Ced Gibson hit three shots from distance and tallied 17 points. Rachael Gregory added a 12 point, 10 rebound double-double, her third of the season.

Coastal shot 37.3 percent from the field, and 41.4 percent from 3-point range. Georgia Southern went 50.9 percent from the field. Each team pulled in 36 rebounds.

Georgia Southern came out of the gate firing from distance, making half of its eight first-quarter baskets from beyond the arc to carry a 24-16 lead into the second quarter. Gibson countered with a trio of 3-pointers of her own, and added a short jumper in the second quarter to lead all players with 11 points at halftime. Archer added seven first-half points for the Chants, including buzzer-beaters at the end of both the first and second quarters. Archer's last-second shot right before halftime brought Coastal's deficit back to single digits as Georgia Southern led 39-30 at the break.

After a DJ Williams layup to open the second half, the Eagles used a 9-0 run to take a 17-point lead, their largest of the night. Coastal slowly chipped away at that lead over the course of the third quarter as the Chants heated up from beyond the arc and at the free throw line. Archer hit three of Coastal's four 3-pointers in the quarter and, after missing all three free throw attempts in the first half, the Chants went 4-4 from the line.

Georgia Southern recorded the first basket of the fourth quarter, but was held scoreless by the Chanticleer defense for an almost four-minute period afterwards. Coastal cut its deficit to seven points during that time, but would come no closer to catching the Eagles for the remainder of the game. Georgia Southern shot 60 percent from the field over the final 10 minutes -- its highest quarter percentage of the contest -- and added six makes from the line to close out the game.

Coastal is back in action Saturday for a 12 p.m. game at Georgia State. It is the first meeting between the Chants and Panthers since the 1993-94 season.