Final Stats Stats

CHICAGO – The Nicholls State University women's basketball team put up a valiant effort early against nationally-ranked DePaul, but the Blue Demons proved to be too strong as the Colonels fell 87-57 on Friday night in the Maggie Dixon Classic.

Nicholls (0-1) will continue play in Chicago on Saturday with a 5 p.m. matchup with Mississippi Valley State, which lost to Dayton, 93-59.

KK Babin led four Colonels in double figures, finishing with 15 points on 5 of 13 shooting. Alisha Allen added 12 points, while LiAnn McCarthy and Jenny Nash tacked on 10 each.

The Colonels went toe-to-toe with the Blue Demons through the first half of the opening period. Down 6-1 early on, Babin came out with a hot hand, scoring 10 points to even the score at the 13:33 mark. During the stretch, Babin hit two 3-pointers, with her second tying the game at 12-all.

Allen put in a bucket to tie the game at 14, but DePaul answered with a 10-0 run before extending its lead to 32-18 on a Brittany Hrykno 3-ball. DePaul continued to dominate and went into the break leading 48-27. Hrykno led all scorers with 18 points and added six assists.

In the second half, the Colonels made one last push in the opening minutes as McCarthy drained back-to-back 3-pointers, making the score 49-37. However, Nicholls was never able to come any closer as DePaul went on to win by 30 in front of its home crowd.

The Colonels shot 35.6 percent (21 of 59) from the field and had 24 turnovers. Nicholls was edged on the boards, 43-40, by DePaul, which finished 33 of 68 from the field (48.5 percent).