BATON ROUGE, La. – Playing its fourth contest in a five-game span against top-five ranked teams, No. 19/17 Tennessee went toe-to-toe with No. 6/4 LSU and grabbed a fourth-quarter lead before the Tigers prevailed, 82-77, in front of 11,154 at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center on Sunday afternoon.
The Lady Vols (17-6, 4-6 SEC) were led by 21 points from junior guard Ruby Whitehorn, while fifth-year guard Jewel Spear contributed 19, sophomore guard Talaysia Cooper 16 and junior forward Zee Spearman 15 in another narrow setback for the Big Orange against a gauntlet-like stretch of their schedule. Sophomore forward Alyssa Latham came off the bench to pace her team on the glass with eight rebounds.
The Tigers (25-1, 10-1 SEC) also had four scoring in double figures, led by 23 from Kailyn Gilbert. She was aided by Mikaylah Williams with 16, Aneesah Morrow with 14 and Flau’Jae Johnson with 12. Morrow grabbed 14 rebounds to card a double-double for LSU, which connected on 20 of 22 attempts from the free-throw line, including eight of nine in the fourth quarter.
LSU grabbed an early 4-0 lead and then pushed ahead 7-2 before the Lady Vols evened things up, 9-9, by the 5:15 mark on layups by Spearman and Whitehorn and a three-pointer by Spearman. A steal by Spearman and a pass ahead to Spear for a transition layup gave the Lady Vols their first lead at 11-9 with 5:01 to go before a Sa’myah Smith layup sent the teams into the 4:17 media timeout deadlocked at 11. A layup and trey by Whitehorn pushed her team in front, 18-15, with 2:48 remaining, but LSU used a 7-0 run to seize a 22-18 lead by the 1:11 mark before Whitehorn countered with a layup to end the first period with her team trailing, 22-20.
LSU built a nine-point lead midway through the second stanza at 33-24, but the Lady Vols struck back as Spear scored eight straight points, including back-to-back threes to trim the margin to three, 35-32, by the 4:45 media timeout. A pair of Spear free throws drew UT back to within three again at the 3:32 mark, and after the Tigers had pushed the margin to seven, 41-34, she drained a long three to whittle the margin to four, 41-37, by halftime.
Tennessee came out fighting at the opening of the third frame, scoring the first seven points and building a three-point lead, 44-41, on buckets by Whitehorn and Spearman and a free throw and layup by Cooper to force an LSU timeout with 7:06 remaining. A free throw and layup by Cooper gave the Lady Vols their biggest lead, 47-43, with 5:52 to go, but the Tigers trimmed the deficit to one, 49-48, on a pair of Gilbert free throws before the teams went to the media timeout with 4:50 left. LSU outscored the Lady Vols, 14-8, the rest of the way, but a Spear free throw ended up being the final points of the quarter after an LSU three-point shot was ruled to have gone in after the buzzer sounded, sending LSU into the fourth with a 62-57 lead.
The Lady Vols scored the first seven points of the final stanza, getting a Spearman hook shot, a pair of Spear free throws and a Tess Darby three to move ahead, 64-62, with 8:01 remaining. A 9-2 burst by the home team, though, earned it a 71-66 lead with 5:00 left and forced a UT timeout. The Tigers twice pushed their lead to eight, 76-68, and then 78-70 with 2:14 to go, but a Whitehorn layup cut the gap to 78-73 with 1:30 remaining. Then, an old-fashioned three-point play from Whitehorn narrowed the deficit to two, 78-76, with 23 ticks on the clock. LSU, however, hit four free throws down the stretch to stave off the upset bid.
UP NEXT: The Lady Vols now will turn their focus to the first of three straight games at home. On deck Thursday at Food City Center is Auburn at 6:30 p.m. ET, with that contest available for streaming on SECN+. The matchup also will be broadcast on Lady Vol Network radio stations statewide and via audio stream on UTSports.com. The tilt will be UT’s Play4Kay game, bringing awareness to the fight against breast cancer.
