Sharp shooting early helps to give Payne, Lady Colonels first Southland Conference win

It didn’t take long for first-year coach Justin Payne and his Nicholls women’s basketball team to pick up their initial Southland Conference win of the season.

Only two games into the schedule and on the road for the first time in conference play, the Lady Colonels got off to a quick start and never looked back in a 73-55 win Saturday afternoon at Houston Christian University.

The win evened Nicholls’ record at 1-1 in the conference and 7-7 overall. HCU fell to 0-2 in league play and 5-8 overall.

With every shot seeming to fall early in the game, Nicholls built a 10-point lead after one quarter and used a dominant start to the second quarter to essentially put the game away by halftime.

Lexi Alexander, who scored a team-high 22 points, owned the early portion of the second quarter for Nicholls.

With the Lady Colonels leading 22-12 after the first quarter, Alexander scored the first five points of the second quarter on a jumper and a three-point play for a 15-point Nicholls advantage.

Before the quarter was over, Alexander would add three more baskets and an assist as Nicholls went on to a 41-26 halftime lead. The biggest lead of the half for the Lady Colonels in the half was 17 points on a bucket by Alexander that made the score 35-17.

With Alexander 7 of 11 from the field and 15 first-half points, along with Mikaya Etienne scoring 13 points on 6 of 9 shooting, the Lady Colonels shot 56 percent in the opening 20 minutes.

N’Denasija Collins kept the Huskies in the game. During Nicholls’ run to its 17-point lead, all three baskets by HCU in that span came from Collins. Collins scored more than half of her team’s total in the first half with 14 points.

Other than Collins’ 5 of 7 shooting, the rest of the HCU team combined to shoot 4 of 19 from the field in the first half.

If the Huskies had any thoughts of a rally in the second half, Kyla Hamilton shut them down early in the third quarter.

Hamilton hit a 3-pointer to open the second half to give Nicholls its biggest lead of the game at 18 points.

After HCU chipped the deficit down to 11 points, Hamilton hit another 3-pointer to build the lead back up to 14 points at 47-33 at the 5:56 mark of the third quarter.

Nicholls went on to lead 56-39 after three quarters.

The biggest lead for Nicholls was 21 points on a layup by Deonna Brister for a 60-39 advantage with 7:48 left in the game.

The closest HCU would get in the second half was an 11-point deficit at 64-53 on a 3-point basket by Tove Caesar with 3:40 left in the game.

Along with Alexander’s 21 points, Etienne had 17 points and Hamilton 12 as Nicholls ended up shooting 52.5 percent from the field. Daelyn Craig had 10 rebounds.

Collins led all scorers with 23 points and 13 rebounds. Kennedy Wilson had 12 points.

It wasn’t just sharp shooting that won the game for Nicholls. The Lady Colonels defense to 18 of 54 (33 percent) shooting from field.

Hamilton factored early on the defensive end.

After a layup by Alexander, a Hamilton steal led to the game’s first 3-pointer by Britiya Curtis gave Nicholls a quick five-point lead at 11-6. Hamilton finished with a game-high three steals.

A basket in the post by Alexander and an Etienne 3-pointer extended the Nicholls lead to 10 points at 18-8. Leading by eight points in the closing seconds of the first quarter, a Betzalys Delgado jumper gave the Lady Colonel a 22-12 lead after one period.

Nicholls shot 10 of 17 (59 percent) from the field in the opening quarter.