NEW ORLEANS — Reserve guard Zoie Miller scored 13
points Wednesday to lead NAIA No. 25 Loyola to a 67-57 women's basketball victory
against Xavier University of Louisiana at The Den.
Di'Mond Jackson and Kylah Jones scored 11 points apiece,
and Megan Worry had 10 for the Wolf Pack (18-6), which led wire-to-wire against the
Gold Nuggets (17-10) for the second consecutive meeting. Adrianne Sloboh grabbed 13 rebounds.
Whitney Gathright scored 24 points — she made four
3-pointers to tie her career high — and
Donyeah Mayfield had 10 points and 11
rebounds for Xavier.
Alesha Smith and
Trana Hopkins scored eight points apiece.
Loyola scored the first five points and led 22-14 when
Miller ended the first quarter with a 3-pointer. The Wolf Pack led 40-26 at halftime
and never by less than six points thereafter.
Two Jones free throws at 6:50 of the third quarter gave Loyola its largest lead, 47-28.
Gathright, a senior point guard, scored her most points since mid-November and
reached 20 points for the 13th time in her career. Her two free throws at 3:47 of
the third quarter made her the second Gold Nugget to make 400 in a career.
Gathright finished the game 10-of-12 from the line and with 406 made in her career,
trailing Antasha Jones (1993-97) with 415.
Gathright needs 16 points to become the ninth Gold Nugget to reach 1,300 in a career.
Mayfield made a pair of 3-pointers in the final four minutes,
the second one at the buzzer to make her the first Gold Nugget with 25 made 3's and
30 blocked shots in the same season. The double-double was Mayfield's fifth of the season
and her ninth in two years.
Loyola outshot the Gold Nuggets 40 to 27.5 percent from the floor.
Xavier tied a season high by making eight 3-pointers, and the Nuggets shot better from
behind the arc (34.8 percent) than they did from inside it (21.4).
Xavier, which outrebounded its previous four opponents, lost the boards 43-34.
Xavier lost for the third straight time against a
ranked team in NAIA Division I and is 4-4 this season against those teams.
Xavier trailed Loyola by 10 points in this week's coaches poll and was 26th overall.
It was Xavier's first double-digit loss of the season
against an NAIA opponent.
The Gold Nuggets will finish the regular season with three consecutive Gulf Coast
Athletic Conference road games: 3 p.m. EST Saturday at Edward Waters, 5 p.m. Monday
at Tougaloo and 3 p.m. Feb. 27 at Dillard. Xavier and Edward Waters are tied for second
place in the GCAC. The GCAC Tournament will be March 4-6 in New Orleans, with opening-round
games for the women at SUNO and the men at Dillard. For the third straight year, all semifinals and finals
for women and men will be played at Xavier's Convocation Center.