BATON ROUGE — South Carolina women’s basketball used another second-half surge to defeat Kim Mulkey’s LSU Tigers 66-60 Thursday at the Maravich Center in Louisiana.
Dawn Staley’s No. 1 Gamecocks (14-1, 2-1 SEC) faced another tough challenge from the No. 13 Tigers (14-2, 2-1 SEC), which entered the night on a 13-game win streak with two victories over ranked SEC opponents.
USC was missing two of its key reserve players, Kamilla Cardoso and Laeticia Amihere, as well as junior Olivia Thompson on Thursday.
The Gamecocks trailed by 11 midway through the second quarter but used a dominant third quarter to earn their first SEC road win of the 2021-22 season.
Zia Cooke nailed a jumper with under a minute to go to seal South Carolina’s first road win in conference play. Cooke returned from a minor slump late in non-conference play to make an impact for South Carolina in its last two games. She finished Thursday with 17 points on 7 of 15 shooting.
Aliyah Boston of St. Thomas, on a campaign for national player of the year, tallied her eighth consecutive double-double and led the Gamecocks with 19 points and 18 rebounds. Destanni Henderson also finished in double figures, scoring 16 points. Boston nearly out-rebounded the entire LSU team, which finished the game with 24 boards compared to South Carolina’s 48. The Gamecocks tallied 19 rebounds on the offensive end.
In the Gamecocks’ victory, Boston finished with 19 points, 18 rebounds, 3 blocked shots and 1 assist.
No. 1 South Carolina will face No. 20 Kentucky at home in Columbia, SC at Colonial Life Arena for a 1 p.m. game tomorrow (Sunday, January 9).
This article was first published in “The State,” click on the link to read more.