ATLANTA – In a game with 14 ties and 14 lead changes, visiting Appalachian State erased a 69-67 Georgia State lead in the closing 30 seconds with five straight points to win 72-69.
Host Georgia State had a two-point lead and had the ball with a minute to play, but with two chances to add to the lead, GSU threw the ball out of bounds on errant passes by Newby and Ponder with 55 and 33 seconds on the clock. With 28 seconds left, Appalachian State's KeKe Cooper grabbed a missed shot by Joi Jones and scored, then added a free throw as she was fouled. That made it 70-69. GSU ran its next possession, but once again KeKe Cooper made the play, blocking a lay-up attempt by Panther point guard Madison Newby.
When App State's Kaila Craven made two free throws with :06 on the clock, GSU had the ball by its own bench with 6.6 seconds to tie. The Panthers never really got a good look and Newby threw the ball in the general direction of the basket with two seconds left.
With the win, Appalachian State (9-17, 6-11) moved two games ahead of Georgia State (10-17, 5-13) in the eighth-place standing with just two games remaining on the schedule.
Georgia State worked the ball inside and scored 42 of its 69 points in the paint. GSU aided its cause by making 14 of 16 free throws (87.5%). Freshman PG Madison Newby had 18 points, but on 6-of-15 shooting, with 8 rebounds and 4 assists. Junior forward Haley Gerrin added 16 points of 8-of-9 shooting but fouled out. Sophomore guard Makeba Ponder added 15 points on 5-of-7 field goals with 3-of-4 outside the 3-point line.
Appalachian State was led by junior guard Joi Jones from Duluth, Ga with 28 points on 12-of-17 shooting. Senior hero Cooper scored 11 points, grabbed 5 rebounds and blocked 3 shots. Freshman Kaila Craven added 18 big points with 4-of-6 3-point field goals.
“We can look back at the 25 turnovers and the extremely costly ones in the final minute and see why we lost today,” head coach Sharon Baldwin-Tener said. “It was a good, tough, back-and-forth basketball game and both teams were giving their all. We tried to get the ball inside today and it was working. We are a very young team, so we just have to learn from these kind of games and make ourselves better.”
Georgia State had a 33-31 rebound advantage today and the defense came away with 12 steals.
This was Appalachian State's first win over Georgia State as Sun Belt members as GSU had won the previous three meetings.
The Panthers will finish the season next week in Louisiana, playing at UL Lafayette on Thursday at UL Monroe on Saturday.
