Marshall isn’t quite ready to call it a season just yet.
The No. 11 seed Thundering Herd continued an improbable run at the Sun Belt Conference Championship on Friday, defeating No. 6 seed Appalachian State 75-66 for a fourth victory in as many days at the Pensacola Bay Center.
“I was really proud of our effort on defense,” MU head coach Juli Fulks said. “In the first half, we flew around and got our hands on a lot of different things. All four games, we’ve been in double-digit steals. All of those possessions matter. On top of that, we won the board battle again. I’m convinced that if we shoot well from the three-point line and do those two things, we’re going to be hard to beat because we can put some points up and that gets us extra possessions.”
Marshall (15-19) has won seven of eight overall, is 7-0 in the Sun Belt Championship the last two seasons and will next face third-seeded Troy at 3:30 p.m. Saturday.
One day after holding off Louisiana 48-46, the Herd didn’t need late-game heroics against the Mountaineers as a result of much-improved offense.
Marshall led for the final 33-plus minutes, starting with one of its five first-quarter three-pointers from Meredith Maier for an 11-10 advantage.
Maier made one other first-quarter triple, Timberlynn Yeast led all players with seven points and Marshall shot 7 for 14 in the opening frame to lead, 19-13.
“It was nice to see the first one go in for sure,” Maier said. “It just takes one to go in and that gets everybody going. It’s almost intimidating for the other team. Once we get hot, I think they tend to back down a lot and that happened.”
Marshall held steady in the second period and built its advantage to 35-26 at halftime.
The Herd scored the first five points of the second half and directly after Elena Pericic’s triple provided Appalachian State (13-17) with its first points of the third quarter, MU answered in the form of a Peyton Ilderton trey.
Mara Neira hit consecutive threes to bring Appalachian State to within 43-35 at the 5:47 mark of the third, but the Mountaineers did not make another field goal in the quarter and their deficit grew to 55-41 after three.
Marshall again scored the first five points of the fourth quarter, including consecutive field goals from CC Mays for a 19-point advantage.
The Mountaineers’ Emily Carver hit consecutive threes to bring her team to within 63-54 with outside 3 minutes left, but Ilderton scored on a second-chance opportunity at the 2:44 mark to help the Herd maintain separation.
“We have a lot of players that are really good. Anybody can go off on any given day,” Ilderton said. “My teammates found me today and I was able to put the ball in the basket.”
A former all-state selection and state champion at Logan High School, Ilderton scored a career-high 21 points, her second double-figure scoring game over three seasons at Marshall. She made 6-of-6 free throws in the fourth quarter and 7 of 8 for the game.
“Equally important, she hit all those free throws at the end to keep it from being interesting and that’s a big part of it,” Fulks said. “She was able to get open, knock those down and that matters down the stretch.”
Aislynn Hayes added 15 points and Maier scored 12 for the Herd, which shot 23 for 47.
“We’re able to put a lot of pressure on people with Aislynn and CC’s ability to get to the rim, so you have to start choosing,” Fulks said. “Yesterday, we didn’t shoot it particularly well, but we know we can and today we got those same looks and knocked them down. When that happens, we put a lot of points up really fast.”
Neira made seven of her team’s 13 threes and tied Carver for game-high scoring honors with 23 apiece in defeat.
Marshall and Appalachian State split two regular season matchups with the visitor winning on both occasions. The Mountaineers lost eight straight games to end the season.
The Herd suffered an 80-69 loss at Troy back on January 4.