MOBILE, Ala. – The Coastal Carolina women's basketball team suffered its second straight loss Thursday evening as the Chanticleers fell, 67-50, at South Alabama. Despite a 16-point night from
Naheria Hamilton, the Chants could not contain USA's 3-point shooting as the Jags finished 11-24 from beyond the arc.
The loss drops Coastal to 16-12, 8-9 to remain in eighth place in the Sun Belt. South Alabama, meanwhile, improves to 20-8, 9-8 to tie Appalachian State, which suffered a loss at Troy.
Hamilton's 16 points came on 6-12 shooting with four points at the free-throw line. The junior center also hauled in a team-high nine rebounds as Coastal finished with 44 total.
Torrie Cash (nine points),
Aja Blount (eight points) and
Kaylin West (seven points) followed Hamilton in scoring. Coastal finished the game shooting 36.4 percent overall, including just 2-11 from 3-point range.
USA's Devyn Lowe led all players in scoring with 20 points, and Atoinette Lewis joined her teammate in double digits with 10 points. USA shot just 39 percent from the field, but finished 45.8 percent from behind the arc, including 5-8 from distance in the third quarter. Lowe was the Jags leading 3-pointer shooter, hitting 6-7 and 7-11 overall.
Poor shooting out of the gate for both teams lead to a low-scoring first half. Coastal especially had a slow start, hovering around 20 percent shooting over the game's first five minutes. Coming out of the first-quarter media timeout Coastal began to hit its stride, however, and ended the opening period on an 8-2 run. South Alabama responded by hitting three of four 3-point attempts in the second quarter, and finished 5-12 from beyond the arc overall in the first half to hold a slight, 29-25, edge on the Chants at the break.
A 13-2 run in the third quarter gave Coastal its only lead of the game and put the Chants in front by three points. Hamilton and West each had five points during that run. A Lewis layup and back-to-back 3-pointers from Lowe gave the lead back to USA, and the Jags remained in front for the remainder of the game.
USA closed the third quarter on a 7-1 run to take a seven-point advantage, and scored the first six points of the fourth quarter to claim the game's first double-digit lead.
Coastal closes the regular season on Saturday at Troy. Opening tip between the Chants and Trojans is set for 2 p.m. CT/3 p.m. ET on ESPN+.
