NATCHITOCHES, La. – Playing in their final tune-up of the 2017-18 preseason, the LeTourneau University women's basketball team showed signs of growth throughout despite falling to host NCAA Division I Northwestern State University by a final score of 82-39 at Prather Coliseum on Sunday afternoon.

Playing NSU for the fourth consecutive season, the Lady Demons would jump out to an 8-0 lead early on in the first quarter before a trey by senior Ashley Reed got the YellowJackets on the scoreboard to cut the deficit to 8-3. Northwestern State would respond with a three of their own to tie their largest lead of the first quarter at eight points as LETU would go on a 6-0 run to cut the lead to 11-9 with 3:44 remaining in the first period. LeTourneau would pick up another three with sophomore guard Alexandria Thorne getting in the scorebook to cut the lead back down to two at 14-12. NSU would respond with their second three of the quarter with 1:19 left in the first to take a 17-12 lead into the second quarter.

Shooting woes and turnovers would cause issues for the YellowJackets throughout the second quarter as LETU would be held scoreless for the first 5:17 of the second stanza. Northwestern State scored the first 15 points of the quarter to jump out to a 32-12 lead as LeTourneau would manage to shoot just 2-10 from the field in the second 10 minutes of action while turning the ball over 10 times which led to seven Lady Demon points. The score would end up being 35-16 in favor of NSU at intermission.

The third quarter would wind up being the most productive offensive quarter for LETU in the game, with LeTourneau putting up 17 puts on six-of-16 shooting from the field with 10 points coming in the paint and 13 points coming from bench players. NSU managed to extend their halftime lead of 19 and push it to 30 points at 50-20 with a layup at 5:32 left in the third period before a 9-0 run by the YellowJackets capped off by a Thorne triple cut the lead back down to 50-29. The Demons would snap two minute scoreless streak by going on a 10-4 run to end the third as the score would sit at 60-34 heading into the fourth.

Foul trouble and depth finally caught up to the YellowJackets in the fourth quarter as LETU saw the Demons manage to get to the charity stripe 10 times in the quarter. LeTourneau would score the opening two points of the quarter with a jumper by Thorne, but NSU would go on a 9-1 run to extend their lead to 71-36 with 3:40 remaining in the game. A four minute, 27 second scoreless drought for LETU would be snapped on a three by Keauna Whitfield, but would end up being the final points of the game for LeTourneau with Northwestern State ending the game on an 11-0 run.

"We had way too many turnovers to compete with an NCAA Division I team today and we have a lot of growing and adjusting to do" Said head coach Cassi Rozanski in a post-game interview. "We started two freshman who have never played in an environment like this and we did have good spurts today that if we can capitalize on we will do good things moving forward."

LETU would shoot just 15 of 52 from the field (28.8 percent) compared to 29 of 70 (41.4 percent) for NSU with the Lady Demons scoring 33 points off YellowJacket turnovers. Bench points would be 23-18 in favor of LeTourneau with Northwestern State holding a 30-18 lead in points in the paint.

Whitfield led the YellowJackets with 11 points and seven rebounds (six defensive) while Reed had five points and three assists to go along with one steal. Sha'Donnaver Young and Thorne both had eight points in the game. NSU was led by a game-high 21 points by starter Libba Gilliam.

LeTourneau will play their 2017-18 season opener on Wednesday night at 5 p.m. at NCAA Division I Houston Baptist University. HBU is 0-1 this year after dropping their season opener at South Florida on Sunday afternoon by a score of 90-43. The game will mark the head coaching debut of LETU head coach Cassi Rozanski.