MURFREESBORO, Tenn. – The Western Kentucky women’s basketball team battled back from a 13-point second-half deficit Saturday to force overtime, and then another overtime, but couldn’t escape the Murphy Center with the program’s 11th straight win.

Anastasia Hayes had a near-triple-double and Middle Tennessee scored the first six points of the second added period to beat the Lady Toppers 108-103.

“Our defense was still bad and they were getting to the basket and we were either fouling or letting them shoot layups,” WKU coach Greg Collins said about the second overtime. “We weren’t forcing any turnovers and that was the difference in the fourth quarter. In the overtime, we just didn’t force any turnovers and they did a good job of continuing to attack the basket.”

WKU (20-7 overall, 12-4 Conference USA) cut Middle Tennessee’s (19-9, 11-6) lead to eight by the end of the third quarter, and took a 60-59 lead with an and-one from Meral Abdelgawad with 7:53 to play in the fourth. Alexis Whittington answered with a layup less than 30 seconds later to put the Lady Raiders ahead until an and-one from Dee Givens at the 1:55 mark made it a 74-73 WKU lead.

Middle Tennessee had built its lead to eight between the buckets from Abdelgawad and Givens, with seven of the team’s 10 points during the stretch coming from Anastasia Hayes. The redshirt sophomore finished with 37 points, 14 rebounds and eight assists, after being held to 12 points in the Lady Raiders’ 71-63 loss at E.A. Diddle Arena on Jan. 11.

“Anastasia, when she comes to play, we’re a good basketball team, bottom line. I’ll rephrase that – we’re a great basketball team when she comes to play,” Middle Tennessee coach Rick Insell said. “She comes to play 98 percent of the time, but there’s a game or two, just like everybody has off nights, and she has an off night every now and then and sometimes we struggle when she has an off night, but when she comes like this, we’re pretty good.”

Hayes’ younger sister, freshman Aislynn Hayes, connected on a 3-pointer while falling down with 1:37 left in the final period of regulation to give Middle Tennessee a 76-74 lead, and Alexis Brewer made two free throws with 58 seconds left to tie the game. WKU had two looks at the basket in its final possession of regulation – one on a baseline jumper from Brewer and another on a putback attempt from Givens – but couldn’t get either to fall.

The first overtime period featured two ties and eight lead changes in the first 4 1/2 minutes of the five-minute frame. The final of those was a runner in the lane from Brewer that put WKU ahead 89-88.

Middle Tennessee went just 6-for-25 (24 percent) from 3-point range, but continued its timely shooting from long-range with a make from Taylor Sutton with 3.3 seconds left in the period to put the Lady Raiders up 91-89. WKU got the ball out of bounds in front of its own bench and Whitney Creech was fouled driving to the basket with 0.1 seconds left. She made both free throws to force the second overtime.

The Lady Raiders scored the first six points of the second overtime and continued on an 11-3 run to take a 102-94 lead. WKU got within four twice after, but couldn’t overcome the deficit and dropped its first game since a loss at Old Dominion on Jan. 16.

Brewer finished with 28 points to lead WKU. Givens had 22 points, Raneem Elgedawy had 19 points and 12 rebounds and Creech and Abdelgawad each had 13 points. Sherry Porter, who hadn’t played since injuring her MCL in the third quarter of WKU’s Feb. 1 win over FIU, was in the game for 28 minutes Saturday.

In addition to defensive issues, WKU struggled rebounding. Middle Tennessee held an advantage for most of the game and finished with a 54-53 edge in the battle on the boards. The Lady Raiders had 23 second-chance points to WKU’s 14. Middle Tennessee also only got 15 and 24 minutes from starting forwards Charity Savage and Courtney Whitson, respectively, because of foul trouble. Rellah Boothe, a 6-3 forward, played 15 minutes off the bench before fouling out, and Sutton also ended the game on the sideline with four fouls.

“We were getting beat on the boards most of the evening. I don’t think we got close on the boards until about the fourth quarter,” Collins said. “That’s something that we have to do a good job of. We have to do a better job of taking care of those defensive boards and limiting people to one shot, and we weren’t.”

Anastasia Hayes scored six of Middle Tennessee’s first 14 points, the final of which came when she stole the ball, saved it from going out of bounds with a behind-the-back pass and got it back for a transition layup to give her team a five-point lead halfway through the first and foreshadowing the type of day she would have.

“I know last time they beat us, I didn’t have a really good game, so I knew I had to step up this game,” she said. “I was prepared for this game the whole week and I knew then from that steal that I was going to have a good game. I felt it all day, though. I was just ready to play all day.”

Anastasia Hayes finished the opening period with eight points and Middle Tennessee held a 21-19 lead. The Lady Raiders had eight of its 23 second-chance points in the quarter and had an 11-6 rebounding edge.

The second quarter featured four ties and WKU led one time – at 25-23 when Givens capped off a 6-0 run with a 3-pointer at the 6:25 mark – but a 9-1 run started with a 3-pointer from Whitson and capped off by one from Alexis Whittington made it a 40-32 Lady Raider lead heading into the break.

Middle Tennessee built its lead to 13 with 1:46 to play in the third after back-to-back baskets from Boothe, before WKU came back to force overtime.

Behind Anastasia Hayes was Aislynn Hayes with 23 points, Boothe with 15 and Whittington with 13. Middle Tennessee finished with a 28-8 advantage in points off the bench.

The Lady Raiders will host North Texas and WKU will host Charlotte on Thursday.{&end}