Feb. 6, 2001
BOWLING GREEN, Ky. - For the third time this season, Western Kentucky senior All-America forward ShaRae Mansfield (Louisville, Ky./Manual HS) topped the 30-point mark, finishing with a game-high 31 points in the Lady Toppers' 71-56 win over Sun Belt Conference foe New Orleans Tuesday night at E.A. Diddle Arena. The victory assures WKU of a winning record for the 19th consecutive season and the 24th time in the last 28 years. The Lady Toppers also improve to 22-0 all-time against UNO with the win.
Mansfield knocked down a career-high 12 field goals, going 12-of-17 from the floor and hitting all seven of her free throws. She also becomes the first Lady Topper since Laurie Heltsley in 1980-81 to record three 30-point games in a single season. Heltsley notched a school-record four 30-point outings that season.
Neither team gained much of an upper hand in the first half, as the two sides combined for 20 turnovers and 22 fouls. Western Kentucky (15-8, 7-4 Sun Belt) scored the first four points of the game in the opening minute, but could muster just one field goal over the next eight minutes. Meanwhile, New Orleans was having its own troubles from the floor, misfiring on nine of its first 10 shots. Eventually, the Privateers opened up a pair of six-point leads, the last coming at 20-14 with 3:11 remaining in the period. But, the Lady Toppers closed the half on a 9-3 run, tying the score at 23-23 at the break.
The second half turned out to be a more one-sided affair. After taking 20 minutes to score 23 points, Western needed just over seven minutes in the second period to match its first-half output. The Lady Toppers canned 11 of their first 13 shots in the half and went on a 34-13 surge over the first 10 minutes to take command. Junior forward Aja Brown (Bronx, N.Y./Manhattan Center HS) converted a three-point play to give WKU its largest lead of the night at 57-36 with 9:57 to play.
New Orleans (11-9, 4-6) tried to make a game of it, getting within 12 points three times in the second half, but the Lady Toppers never let the visitors get inside single digits down the stretch. Western wound up shooting 66.7 percent (18-of-27) in the second half, highlighted by Mansfield's 20 points on 8-of-9 shooting. The Lady Toppers also logged a season-best .933 free throw percentage in the game, marking the 19th time in 23 games this season where they have hit at least 70 percent of their charity tosses.
Western Kentucky will be back in action Saturday at 7 p.m. (CST) when it welcomes #8 Louisiana Tech to Diddle Arena. It will not only be the Lady Techsters' final visit to Bowling Green as a member of the Sun Belt, but it will also be their first appearance since they posted a last-second 97-94 win over WKU in the finals of the 2000 SBC Tournament at Diddle Arena.
-- WKU --
