EVANSVILLE - Battling back in the third quarter, the University of Evansville women's basketball team was unable to complete the comeback in an 85-77 loss to Murray State on Tuesday night inside Meeks Family Fieldhouse in Evansville.

Leading the group of four double-figure scorers for the Aces was senior Myia Clark with a season-high 19 points, while adding six boards in 28 minutes of action. Just one shy of Clark's total was junior Abby Feit with the 48th double-figure scoring performance of her career, finishing just one off of another double-double with nine boards, while adding four blocks. Round-out the double-digit scorers were junior Je'Naiya Davis, who followed her 35-point outburst against Purdue Fort Wayne with 13 points on Tuesday, and freshman Elly Morgan, who tallied 12 points for the second double-figure scoring game of her career. On the opponent side, the Racers were led by a pair of high-scorers in Macey Turley (29 points) and Katelyn Young (28), who combined for 57 of Murray State's 85 points in the win.

An intense back-and-forth battle opened the contest with both side barely missing a shot inside the game's first 10 minutes. Building an early 10-4 lead on triples by Celine Dupont and Elly Morgan, Evansville opened the game with the hot hand, but Murray was close to follow. The Racers knocked-down their final five three-point attempts of the opening quarter, helping Murray own a 25-21 lead following the first period in a high-scoring first 600 seconds.

Layups from Clark and Davis pushed the Aces within a pair to open the second quarter, but the hot shooting from Murray continued as the Racers ran out to a lead as large as 12 in the third. With 42 seconds left in the half, Clark hit another layup, giving her 11 at the break, to bring Evansville's deficit to just 10 at 45-35 at the half.

Five-straight Evansville points out of the break, punctuated by a Clark three, helped fire-up the Meeks Family Fieldhouse crowd in the early part of the third. A three by Feit with 3:15 gone in the third quarter helped Evansville push as close as three, but it was the Racers again who responded to the pressure, increasing their lead to 62-54 as the period came to a close.

As has been true all season, the Aces have never let an opponent get a comfortable lead. Facing a mounting foul problem and an 11-point deficit, Evansville showed its fight, trimming the Racers lead midway through the final 10 minutes. Trailing by seven with just over five minutes left in the game, Feit knocked-down a triple that sent the crowd into a frenzy, followed by Evansville's pressure creating a Murray turnover and a Racer timeout. With the lead hovering around five later in the period, Murray held-off any final charge from the Aces, holding on for the 85-77 win.

The Aces took care of the basketball on Tuesday night, committing just six turnovers, the fewest an Evansville team has given away since turning the ball over just five times against Bradley on Feb. 10, 2019.

Evansville returns to the court on the road on Saturday at Miami (Ohio) in Oxford, Ohio with tip-off at Noon (CT).
 

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