March 24, 2008
Final Stats
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) - LSU's tallest and smallest players proved too much for Marist.
Lady Tigers center Sylvia Fowles had 19 points and 13 rebounds, and 5-foot-3 guard Erica White had 15 points to help LSU beat Marist 68-49 in the second round of the NCAA tournament Monday night, ending the Red Foxes' 22-game winning streak.
The 6-6 Fowles, playing her final game on campus, overcame double-teams all night. She also became the leading rebounder in the history of the Southeastern Conference with 1,527.
White scored all of her points in the second half on an array of perimeter shots and determined drives to the hoop to help LSU break open a close game.
Julianne Viani led Marist with 21 points, hitting 5 3-pointers. Rachele Fitz had 11 points and nine rebounds.
Marist fell to 0-9 all-time against the SEC, whose teams have ousted the Red Foxes from the tournament the last three seasons. They lost to Georgia in 2006 and last season to Tennessee in the round of 16.
LSU scored on its first two possessions and forced three early turnovers, but Marist seemed neither rattled nor intimidated.
The Red Foxes' swarming defense held LSU to 39 percent shooting well into the second half. However, eight of the Lady Tigers' first 14 rebounds were on the offensive end, and LSU cashed in on a number of second chances.
LSU also converted 19 turnovers into 28 points.
The Lady Tigers began to pull away with a 9-0 run shortly before the midway point of the second half. Quianna Chaney, who had 10 points, started it with a mid-range jumper and capped it with a 3. In between, Fowles rebounded two of her misses inside before laying in the third chance and White converted a steal into a fast-break layup.
That put LSU up 45-34 and once the Lady Tigers started scoring, Marist struggled to keep pace with a team that came in allowing only 50.6 points per game, fewest in the nation.
White later converted a three-point play on a driving floater as she was fouled, then hit a 3-pointer, giving her 13 points in the first 11:20 of the second half and putting LSU ahead 53-41.
LSU controlled the game early, building a 25-15 lead behind Fowles' 11 first-half points.
Viani almost single-handedly kept Marist in the game in the first half, going 3-of-5 from 3-point range and scoring 13 of the Red Foxes' 27 points. None of the other four starters scored during the first 13 minutes of the game until Nikki Flores' steal and fast-break layup, which pulled Marist to 22-15.
Fitz, who came in as Marist's scoring leader with an average of 18.8 points, finally broke through when Viani set her up inside more than 15 minutes into the game. Fitz scored again during the final minute of the half, capping a 12-4 run that cut LSU's lead to 29-27 at halftime.
