The Western Kentucky women’s basketball team had to grind out an 84-75 win at Louisiana Tech on Thursday night in Ruston, La.

The Lady Toppers took a lead early, but the Lady Techsters came storming back and held a one-point lead heading into the fourth quarter. WKU outscored Louisiana Tech 26-16 in the fourth quarter to secure the win.

The Lady Toppers (15-6 overall, 7-3 Conference USA) move to fourth place in the league standings. WKU has won five straight games and seven of its last eight.

WKU had five players in double-figure scoring for the first time since Dec. 8, 2018, against Bellarmine. The starting five of Dee Givens, Whitney Creech, Alexis Brewer, Raneem Elgedawy and Meral Abdelgawad scored 81 of WKU’s 84 points.

Creech led WKU with 21 points, with 13 coming in the fourth quarter. She scored WKU’s first nine points of the period.

Elgedawy and Abdelgawad had double-doubles in the game. It was Elgedawy’s fourth straight and the 11th of the season. She finished with 17 points and 11 rebounds. It was the first in Abdelgawad’s career. She had 13 points and a career-high 15 rebounds.

Brewer made the most of her first start of the season, going 5-of-6 from 3-point range for 17 points. Her only miss came near the end of the game as the shot clock expired in one of WKU’s last possessions. Givens was the fifth double-digit scorer with 13 points.

The Lady Toppers came charging out of the gate to start the game, jumping out to an early 12-2 lead. During that stretch, Elgedawy scored four of WKU’s points and Brewer connected on her first 3-pointer of the game. The Lady Toppers held Louisiana Tech (10-11, 2-8) to only 11 points in the first quarter while putting up 23 points themselves.

The Lady Techsters outscored WKU 27-12 in the second quarter, using a 17-0 run to take a 38-35 lead into halftime. Grayson Bright had nine on Louisiana Tech’s 27 second-quarter points, Amber Dixon had seven and Keiunna Walker had six. Bright finished with a game-high 25 points, Dixon had 17 and Walker had 11.

The Lady Techsters led for most of the third quarter, but the Lady Toppers went on a 7-0 run at the end of the period to take a two-point lead with 58 seconds remaining in the period, before Bright made a 3-pointer with six seconds left to go back ahead by one entering the fourth.

Creech took over in the fourth quarter, scoring the first nine points of the period for the Lady Toppers to give WKU the lead. After Creech’s first two buckets, Louisiana Tech made a 3 to tie things up but Creech made a tough jumper and then her first 3-pointer of the game to spark a 9-0 run by the Lady Toppers. That run proved to be the difference and WKU finally put some distance between themselves and the Lady Techsters.

WKU held a 38-32 rebounding advantage and moves to 13-0 this season when outrebounding its opponent.

The Lady Toppers had their best game from 3-point range in conference play. WKU’s eight made 3-pointers were the most since making nine against Samford on Dec. 15. The 44.4 percent shooting from beyond the arc was the best mark since shooting 46.2 percent against Little Rock on Nov. 24.

WKU will travel to Southern Miss on Saturday for a 4 p.m. game, before returning home for five of its final seven regular-season games.{&end}