Slow start dooms

ASU women
From staff reports

After putting on a shooting clinic at Furman last Wednesday, the Appalachian State women's basketball team started out cold from the floor in its 72-52 loss to Elon Saturday.

The Mountaineers (6-19, 3-11 SoCon) missed their first 12 shots, allowing Elon (8-18, 3-11) to build a 14-0 lead. Whitney Tossie finally put the Mountaineers in the scoring column by hitting a long jump shot.

The bucket gave her 1,201 career points, and a pair of early rebounds gave her 400 career boards. The senior guard went on to score seven of the team's first 11 points. Tossie finished the game with 16 points, which propelled her into the career top-10 list for points at Appalachian. With 1,215, she moves ahead of former teammate Kiki Conyers (2002-06) for ninth place.

Tossie also entered the game just eight steals shy of Shannon Spencer's record of 341. Tossie picked up her only steal of the game late in the second half.

Elon drained five three-pointers and shot 55.6 percent from the field to take a 44-19 halftime lead. The Mountaineers recovered from the early shooting woes to sink eight of their next 21 shots, but still made just 24.2 percent of their first-half shots.

Sam Ramirez drained Appalachian State’s first 3-pointer of the game just past the 11-minute mark in the second half. Ramirez finished with 12 points on 5-for-7 shooting and accounted for both of the team's three-pointers in the game.

Courtney Cunningham helped out offensively, with a career-high 10 points on 4-for-7 shooting. She also pulled down six rebounds in 29 minutes.

Appalachian cut the lead to 18 points with six minutes to play, the smallest deficit since the first half. Three Tossie free throws closed the gap to 15 points at 60-45, but the Mountaineers were unable to pull any closer.

Following the 0-for-12 start from the floor, Appalachian finished the game on a 21-for-50 (42 percent) run, and shot 33.9 percent for the game. Elon shot .439 from the floor in the game and 17-for-25 from the free throw line.

The Mountaineers host UNC Greensboro Tuesday at 7 p.m.