BATON ROUGE, La. – Karianna Woods netted 16 points and Kayla White added 14 of her own Saturday afternoon as Bethune-Cookman Women's Basketball fell 65-59 in an overtime thriller to Southern (La.) in a Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) contest housed at F.G. Clark Activity Center.
 
Southern (12-14, 10-5 SWAC) held Bethune-Cookman to just one (1) field goal through the first four minutes of the extra period.
 
A Chloe Fleming three-pointer – her only long-range shot of the afternoon, kicked off the overtime scoring, while an Aniya Gourdine three-point play – added the free throw, put the homestanding Jaguars up 56-52 less than a minute in. After a Kayla Clark free throw for Bethune-Cookman, Gourdine added a layup stemming from a BCU turnover.
 
A Taylor Williams putback and free throw for the old-fashioned three-point play allowed the Jaguars their largest lead of the game, 62-53.
 
Bethune-Cookman (15-14, 6-10 SWAC) registered just its second basket of the period when Chanel Wilson knocked down her only field goal of the game with a three-pointer from the left side to bring the Wildcats to within 62-56 with 49 seconds remaining. Free throws down the stretch would close out the win for the Jaguars, allowing them to sweep the season series.
 
The Wildcats held a 50-45 lead with 2:12 remaining in the fourth quarter stemming from a Kayla White floating jumper just outside the paint. However, Southern would close the quarter on a 5-0 run beginning with Raven White's layup, and capped off by free throws from Gourdine to knot the score at 50-all at the end of regulation.
 
Southern took a 27-23 lead into the locker room at halftime.
 
A series of runs by both teams saw the Jaguars hold a 21-16 lead with 6:11 left in the second quarter off a Williams jumper. Meanwhile, the Wildcats countered to cut the deficit at 23-22 with a White fastbreak layup and a pair of free throws knocked down by D'Shantae Edwards.
 
The third quarter is where BCU stepped ahead by shooting 33.3 percent from the field and using nine points in the quarter from point guard Karianna Woods. She connected on all five of her attempts at foul line and knocked down two field goals to lead the Maroon and Gold in scoring for the period.
 
BCU led it 39-37 heading into the fourth quarter.
 
For the game, the Cats were limited to 3-for-11 shooting from three-point range, converting just their first long-range effort in the fourth quarter. In fact, BCU tallied a better shooting percentage from the field than the host Jaguars, but the overtime scoring skid that saw Southern run out to the nine-point lead proved to be the difference in the contest.
 
Southern was led in scoring by four players in double-figures, including 11-point efforts from White and Gourdine each. Williams and Genovea Johnson each supplied 10 points for the hosts. And it was White finishing her double-double with 12 rebounds.
 
As for BCU, the Cats were topped in scoring by Woods' 16-point afternoon, followed by Kayla White with 14 points and three steals.
 
Bethune-Cookman returns to action Monday, March 4, when traveling to Grambling State at 6:30 p.m. ET.
 
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