NACOGDOCHES, Texas – Northwestern State's women's basketball team needed some offensive balance Thursday night.
 
Instead, it saw Stephen F. Austin spread the scoring around.
 
The Ladyjacks put four players in double figures, including a career-best 16 points from Chanell Hayes, and pulled away in the fourth quarter for a 68-52 Southland Conference victory at William R. Johnson Coliseum.
 
"You have to be balanced from a scoring standpoint if you want to win on the road," fourth-year co-head coach Brooke Stoehr said. "We were extremely passive on both ends of the floor. We never got the ball where we needed it to go and as a result we scored 52 points." 
 
After a back-and-forth first half, Stephen F. Austin (10-10, 4-5) took a nine-point lead into halftime.
 
The Lady Demons (12-10, 6-5) answered a strong SFA start to the second half with some solid defense, cutting the SFA lead to six points before the end of the fourth quarter.
 
However, a Hayes layup off an offensive rebound with 14 seconds left in the quarter put Northwestern State in an eight-point hole and ignited an SFA spark.
 
The Ladyjacks opened the final quarter on a 13-2 run, building a 19-point lead before a Keisha Lee jumper momentarily quelled the tide.
 
SFA followed with a 7-0 spurt that built the lead to 23 points with 3:04 to play.
 
While both teams started quickly offensively – both hit at least 47.6 percent of their first-half shots, SFA maintained that offensive efficiency in the second half. The Ladyjacks connected on 48.1 percent of their second-half shots, while the Lady Demons hit 28 percent (7 of 25) from the floor.
 
In the process, Taylor Schippers (16 points), Taylor Ross (14) and Danielle Rogers (11) joined Hayes in double figures.
 
Janelle Perez paced Northwestern State with 12 points while Lee added 11. Lee moved into 21^st place in career scoring at NSU, surpassing Diamond Cosby. Lee now has 1,236 career points.
 
Shahd Abboud added nine points but no other Lady Demon tallied more than six.
 
"They did a nice job of funneling our guards at the top," Stoehr said. "We didn't attack the high post or get the ball to the heart of the paint like we worked on the last three days. Their defense was effective, and we were extremely passive." 
 
Northwestern State has close to a weeklong break before returning to action Wednesday at Central Arkansas. Tipoff is set for 7 p.m. in Conway, Ark., in the second meeting of the season between the teams.