Pouye Powers Lady Toppers to Pivotal 66-56 Win Over FAU

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. — WKU women’s basketball got back in the winning column on Friday night with a 66-56 win at FIU. The victory skidded a three-game losing streak and gave the Lady Toppers a crucial win in league play.

With the win, WKU (7-12, 6-7 C-USA) is now in a tie with Florida Atlantic (8-9, 6-7 C-USA) for fourth place in Conference USA, one game back from third place (FIU – 10-11, 7-8 C-USA) and one game ahead of sixth place (Marshall – 6-9, 5-8 C-USA and Old Dominion – 8-9, 5-8 C-USA).

The two teams will face off again on Saturday with a 3 p.m. (CT) tip time.

The Lady Toppers were led by Fatou Pouye who had a career high 23 points on 9-of-14 shooting, including 5-of-8 from beyond the arc. The senior also had seven rebounds, four steals and an assist.

Raneem Elgedawy was the second leading scorer for WKU with 16 points and a team-leading eight rebounds. Meral Abdelgawad added 11 points along with seven rebounds, six assists and three steals. Myriah Haywood scored nine points and had a career high five assist. Hope Sivori put up seven points, five rebounds, four assists and four steals.

WKU shot a season-high 44.4 percent (8-18) from 3-point range, while holding C-USA’s second best 3-point shooting team to just 25.0 percent (6-24) from beyond the arc.

The Lady Toppers outrebounded the Panthers 36-33, improving to 34-6 under Greg Collins when outrebounding their opponent. WKU forced FIU into 21 turnovers and capitalized with 17 points from those miscues. WKU also outscored FIU 16-4 in second chance points.

FIU scored the first points of the game, but the Lady Toppers responded with a 16-1 run that featured four 3-pointers from WKU. The Panthers came back with a 6-2 run to end the first quarter with WKU ahead 18-9.

The teams traded baskets most of the second quarter, but FIU ended the second half on an 11-0 run to take a 33-32 lead into halftime.

The third quarter saw six lead changes and a tie, but FIU had a 45-