PULLMAN — The Washington State women’s basketball team put on a strong offensive display, shooting 50% during an 83-56 victory over Jackson State on Saturday at Beasley Coliseum.
WSU (8-2) shot 53.1% in the first half to take a 47-23 lead into halftime over the Tigers (2-7). The Cougars connected on eight three-pointers over the first two quarters, led by junior Charlisse Leger-Walker, who sank five threes.
Leger-Walker scored 17 points in the first half en route to a 20-point performance. The All-Pac-12 guard added eight rebounds and five assists.
Senior Bella Murekatete scored 14 points and pulled down a team-best 10 rebounds. It was the fourth double-double for Murekatete this season and the ninth of her WSU career. Fellow senior Johanna Teder followed with 11 points in her sixth double-digit scoring performance over the past seven games. Freshman Kyra Gardner added a career-high nine points off the bench for Washington State.
“I really liked the response from our team after the loss [to Washington] that we had [last weekend].” WSU coach Kamie Ethridge said. “You never know how the team will respond in that environment. I thought we were really focused and were locked in defensively and in some areas that we wanted to emphasize. You’ve got to love beating this quality of a team by as much as we did. We played at a pretty high level for over 40 minutes.”
WSU shot 50.8% from the field against Jackson State, while the Tigers shot 28.6%. The Cougars were plus-12 on the glass, which led to Washington State outscoring Jackson State 16-5 in second-chance points. Washington State also connected on 10 three-pointers.
After leading by 24 points at halftime, Washington State went up by as many as 35 points before settling for the win in the final nonconference home game of the season. The Cougars were 5-0 at Beasley Coliseum in nonconference games. The Cougars’ 8-2 record is their best start under Ethridge and ties their best start since the 2015-16 season.
WSU returns to action Monday at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi.