DENTON (1/3/02) - Senior forward Jalie Mitchell scored a career-high 35 points to lead the North Texas women’s basketball team (8-5, 2-1) to an 84-56 victory over Arkansas-Little Rock (4-8, 0-2) in Sun Belt Conference action on Thursday night.
Mitchell broke her former career-high of 32 points against SMU during her freshman year by hitting 15-of-23 shots from the floor and knocking down five free throws. Mitchell finished with six rebounds and six steals as well.
“When I had 28 points, Coach Slinker told me that I needed five points to set my career high,” said Mitchell. “It was very important to me. Coach Slinker told my teammates that I only need five points and they worked hard to get me the ball in scoring position. We had them (UALR) down and we wanted to keep them down by scoring, not just me but the entire team.”
“I thought Jalie played great defensively tonight and she really dominated offensively,” said North Texas head coach Tina Slinker.
North Texas ran away with the game early and never looked back. Within the first 10 minutes, the Lady Eagles had built a 17-8 lead and with 5:54 left in the opening half held its largest advantage of the first half at 32-8. The Lady Eagles carried a 41-19 lead into halftime and built their largest lead of the game to 34 points, 81-47, with 2:11 left in the game.
“I thought we played a very complete game tonight and although we struggled early on down low, we were able to correct that,” said Slinker.
Nicole Thomas and Shannan Stephenson also reached double figures in the scoring column with 18 and 11 respectively. Thomas’ 18 points is a season high.
The game marked the second time this season North Texas has scored at least 80 points and holds a 2-0 record in those outings. The Lady Eagles scored a season-high 85 points against UTA on Nov. 17.
The Lady Eagles only turned the ball over 14 times, while UALR committed 25 turnovers that North Texas turned into 34 points. UNT hit 50 percent of its shots from the floor while holding UALR to a .340 shooting percentage.
North Texas improved to 2-1 in Sun Belt Conference play and pinned UALR with its 31st consecutive loss in league play.
UNT will host Arkansas State on Saturday in a 7 p.m. game at the Super Pit.
