Middle Tennessee women’s basketball (2-1) lost to the Tennessee Tech Golden Eagles (3-0) 63-54 in an in-state rivalry game. 

The Lady Raiders’ offense looked impressive in the first quarter, but fizzled out as the game went on, as turnovers caught up to them, and the Golden Eagles took advantage. 

MTSU started strong in the first quarter as freshman Macie Phifer led the team with nine points going three-for-four from beyond the arc to take a 21-13 lead.  

“She’s a great player, and she’s got to figure out this Division I game,” MTSU head coach Rick Insell said. “She’s still going to play good games like tonight, because she’s such a great athlete, but once she figures this thing out, it’s going to propel her into a super basketball player.” 

Freshman point guard Yu Han Lin was also a big contributor to the offense in the first quarter, adding eight more points, but as the game went on, turnovers began to stack up for Lin as she finished the game with eight total turnovers with the Lady Raiders total at 19. 

“Yu Han does a great job of scoring, but you can’t have eight turnovers,” Insell said. “You got to get into the offense, and then we got to push the ball down the floor.” 

The Blue Raider offense began to slow in the second quarter as they only put up 10 points, but Blair Baugus stayed consistent as she stacked 12 rebounds on the night.  

“Blair ended up with 12 rebounds, but still, we’ve got to do a better job,” Insell said. “We missed some rebounds early in the first half, and I just wasn’t really happy with the way we played.”  

As the Middle Tennessee offense slowed throughout the night, the Golden Eagles offense began to heat up as the Blue Raiders defense gave up 22 points in the third quarter.  

“We never did look good running any of our offenses, we never did look settled down,.” Insell said. 

Freshman forward LaReesha Cawthorn and sophomore guard Chloe Larry led the Golden Eagles offense, going seven-for-eight from the field, scoring a combined 17 points to take the lead 48-42 going into the fourth quarter. 

“Chloe Larry…did a good job, we were trailing her and then she hit three threes…that was big,” Insell said.

Tennessee Tech put up another 15 points in the fourth quarter to secure the win. 

“They played hard, they played harder than us, they executed their stuff and they did a good job,” Insell said. 

The Blue Raiders will travel to Houston, Texas, to face off against the Rice Owls (1-1) on Saturday, Nov. 15. 

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