BATON ROUGE – Bouts of intense pressure defense from the defending national champions helped provide enough offense to hand Northwestern State an 81-36 loss on Sunday afternoon at LSU.
 
For a large majority of the day, the Demons (4-6) frustrated the nation's top offensive team by slowing the pace and sticking to their defensive game plan. In the face of LSU's intense pressure that was sprinkled throughout the game, the Demons committed the biggest majority of their turnovers allowing the Tigers to pull away in the second half.
 
"We wanted to do our best to slow an incredibly fast team down, but do that by sticking true to how we play," head coach Anna Nimz said. "For the most part I thought we did a good job of that and true to the scout. With that kind of pressure and those kind of athletes sometimes we lost that composure. 
 
"Overall we showed that poise we talk about, would like to have done a little better in that press situation, but that's something we can grow and get better as we move to conference play.
 
The Tigers came out with a full court pressure from the beginning of the game, forcing five turnovers within the first five minutes of the game, jumping out to a 13-0 lead during that stretch. Sharna Ayres got the Demons on the board with a 3-pointer from the right wing a minute later.
 
NSU turned the ball over just two more times after the media break keeping the Tigers to just six total points during that stretch.
 
The defense shined its brightest on the day during the second quarter, keeping the Tigers to just one made field goal through the first five minutes of the period, an Angel Reese layup two minutes in. They topped that by going the final four minutes of the half without allowing a single made field goal.
 
The one minutes stretch between those two periods however personified LSU's performance on the day.
 
The Tigers scored eight of their 15 second-quarter points in the span of a minute of game time, getting two layups in nine seconds of each other thanks to their length and full-court pressure on inbound plays.
 
The Demons held the Tigers to their third fewest points in the first of a game this season at 34.
 
NSU shot 25 percent from the field in the first half getting three of their five made field goals from beyond the arc. Ayres copied her 3-pointer to open that opened the scoring from the left wing in the second quarter and Nia Hardison drained a corner three with 15 seconds left in the half that made it a 34-15 game.
 
LSU turned up the pressure in the second half forcing 10 turnovers in the third quarter to go along with a more well-executed offense to create separation. The Tigers scored on five straight field goal attempts to push the lead while forcing five Demon turnovers during that stretch.
 
A 14-0 run near the end of the third quarter, that was ended by a Jiselle Woodson three, all but secured the final result heading into the final period. Woodson's triple was immediately answered by star freshman Mikaylah Williams's and LSU's first three of the game as the buzzer sounded.
 
"I think we came out, played our hearts out and did that for 40 minutes to the best of our ability," Nimz said. "We had a lot of mistakes that I think if we can get settled in we have the opportunity to be highly competitive in the Southland Conference. But to come into this environment against the defending national champions I'm happy with the girls and proud of the program."
 
Ayres led the team with 10 points with Jenny Ntambwe adding nine and Karmelah Dean adding seven.