Wright State was down by five with eight minutes to go and trailed 64-63 with 1:52 left, but the Raiders rallied from there, outscoring Georgetown (KY) 8-2 the rest of the way to pull out a 71-66 exhibition win over the Tigers in women's basketball action at the Nutter Center Monday night.
10 unanswered points, including a pair of three-pointers by Maria Bennett, erased an early 4-0 deficit, but back came Georgetown with nine straight of their own before another Bennett triple tied it at 13 with 9:09 to play in the first half
An 11-0 run late in the period, a run that featured threes from Bennett and Courtney Boyd, helped the Raiders take a 29-24 halftime lead.
Ta-myra Davis made it 34-26 with a basket at the 17:59 mark of the second half, only to see the Tigers go in front 38-34 with 12 straight over a 5:42 span. Georgetown maintained the advantage from there and was up 50-42 on two Devon Golden free throws with 9:55 to play.
Layups from Boyd and Thomas, however, cut the margin in half and WSU eventually tied it at 53 on a fast-break layup by Kayla Lamotte at the 6:55 mark. After four more ties and two lead changes, two Kourtney Tyra foul shots and one from Gina Beining with 1:52 remaining put the Tigers up 64-63.
After Thomas and Tyra exchanged baskets to again put Georgetown up one, a Thomas jumper in the paint with a minute to go gave the Raiders the lead for good at 67-66. An offensive foul call against the Tigers gave Wright State the ball back and Thomas connected on a basket with 11 second left to make it a three-point game.
Georgetown had one last chance to tie, but Tyra missed a three from the left wing and Davis made two foul shots with 0.3 seconds remaining to seal the victory.
Georgetown outshot WSU for the night 44 percent to 35 percent, but the Raiders attempted 19 more shots thanks in part to a 22-12 turnover differential. Wright State was also nine of 38 from three-point range compared to two of 12 for the Tigers.
Thomas led all scorers with 26 points for the Raiders, 19 of those coming in the second half while Bennett added 18 points, 12 coming before halftime. Boyd, in her WSU debut, had 10 while Ta-myra Davis just missed a double-double with nine points and 14 rebounds.
Tyra paced Georgetown with 17 points, all but one coming in the second half, while Mikkah Rogers had 11 and Lizza Jonas chipped in nine points and nine boards off the bench.
Wright State wraps up the exhibition portion of its schedule on Monday, November 8, as the Raiders host Kentucky State in a 7:00 contest.
