By Kevin Farr
Murray State Sports Information
TISHOMINGO – The 21^st ranked Murray State women shook off a sluggish first half with a decisive 18-0 flurry to begin the third quarter and never looked back on the way to a 62-38 Homecoming win over Jacksonville College Friday night ]inside Beames Fieldhouse.

After seven combined turnovers by both teams to begin the game, the Lady Aggies caught fire in building a 14-3 advantage before going cold the remainder of the half, missing their final 14 three-point attempts. Jacksonville wasn't any better, going without a field goal under a conventional three-point play over nine minutes into the action.

The defensive pressure of Coach Nate Levine's squad continued to force Jacksonville turnovers and miscues, holding the visitors without a field goal again over the final nine minutes of the half to take a 24-13 edge to intermission.

Ongolea Afu, Mireia Casas, Sosefina Langi and Arissa Garcia all canned three-pointers in the second half opening burst with Casas and Langi each tallying five points each the Lady Aggies built a commanding 42-13 lead less than five minutes into the third period.

Defense once again proved huge in the run as the visitors failed to crack the scoreboard on any of its first possessions after the break, missing all eight shots and turning the ball over five times.

"We made four of our first six threes but at the end of the first half were just 4-for-20," Levine commented. "Overall, we started the game off right defensively before letting them back in it. I got after them a little at halftime because we weren't at the level that I wanted us to be at after the first four minutes. We got back to it in the second half with defense leading to offense. I thought our offensive rebounding was strong again even though they had pretty good size inside."

Langi had a huge performance with 21 points and 10 rebounds and sinking three treys, two of which came in the opening flurry.

Garcia also reached double figures with 12, Casas scored eight, Afu had seven along with 11 boards, Olivia Quapaw had five, Khalayah Willis notched three and Tierra Williams chipped in two.

Now 2-0 on the young season, the Lady Aggies wrap up a season-opening three-game homestand on Tuesday with a 5:30 contest against National Park College.