Photo by Tyler Lamb / Sports Editor
Story by Cody Strickler / Staff Writer
Middle Tennessee (6-6, 1-0 C-USA) kicked off their journey a to defend their conference title with a win against the UAB Blazers (7-5, 0-1 C-USA) Sunday night. The Lady Raiders won 64-61 and were also able to celebrate another accomplishment as senior Ty Petty reached 1,000 points as a Lady Raider.
The Lady Blazers of UAB started the game off strong with several runs in the first ten minutes. In the beginning, the Lady Raiders were keeping up with UAB. But as time went along, the Blazers pulled away as the first quarter ended with a score of 21-10.
They were out-shot by the Lady Blazers on field goal percentage as UAB shot 55% while MT only shot 21% from the floor.
The second quarter began with the Lady Raiders starting to make their comeback with threes from Abbey Sissom, Alex Johnson, and Petty. Petty also recorded three steals in the quarter.
Middle Tennessee outscored the Lady Blazers 17-15 to cut the lead by nine at the half.
After halftime, Middle Tennessee came out and scored 14 points in the first five minutes to cut the Lady Blazer deficit to two. That run was helped by Petty, Johnson, Sissom, and Rebecca Reuter. The Lady Blazers maintained the lead until the end the quarter with the score 48-43 at the end of 30 minutes.
The last quarter was jumpstarted by big shots from Jess Louro and Petty to tie the game for the first time since the beginning. The Lady Raiders took the lead and held on until the final buzzer to win by three.
MT was led by Ty Petty with a career-high 29 points. Alex Johnson finished with a double-double, recording 18 points and 10 rebounds. Abbey Sissom was inserted back into the lineup tonight, scoring 10 points with nine of them being from behind the arc.
The Lady Raiders will return to action on Thursday against the Rice Owls in the Murphy Center. Tip-off is set for 6:30 p.m.
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