Alexis Peterson Pours in Program Record 45 Points in Win over Wolfpack

The Syracuse women’s basketball team has now won four straight games in the ACC and Alexis Peterson is leading the charge.

The story in Central New York in the sports world was that of poor point guard play. Well that, at least, on the men’s side of things with the Syracuse men struggling. But tell that to Alexis Peterson, who’s having a career season in her senior year and it continued on Thursday night at the Dome when she tallied a career-high 45 points on 11-of-23 (6-of-10 from downtown) in a thrilling 85-75 win over N.C. State.

This was perhaps the most impressive win of the season for the Orange. They trailed by 12 points at the half and it appeared the three game win streak would be coming to an end. There was a reason for such pessimism. Syracuse allowed its opponents to shoot a blistering 60 percent in the first half. Obviously defense was a bit of a problem for a group that prides itself on being stellar on that end. But the offense wasn’t much better. SU shot a disastrous 29 percent and trailed by as many as 13 points to 23rd ranked N.C. State.

Peterson came to the rescue, as the Orange outscored the Wolfpack by 22 points in the second half to capture their 4th straight win. In fact, their last three wins have come by double digits. And this streak began at the Dome against Virginia, following a disappointing loss to begin conference play down in Louisville.

So while the men continue to struggle, the women are looking to pick up right where they left off last year. If you remember, this was a team that loss back to back games to ranked opponents in January before going on a roll that landed them in the national title game.

What a remarkable job head coach Quentin Hillsman has done with this team. He, of course, became the winningest coach in women’s program history with a blowout win over Clemson. Coach Q corralled his 232nd win tonight, while his team improved to 9-0 at home.

At 13-5 (4-1 in ACC) Syracuse will now travel on the road for two games to play Georgia Tech and Florida State. This will prove to be a big test. The Orange are just 2-2 on the road.

After setting a program record with 45 points, Peterson is now averaging 23.9 points, 7.2 assists and 3.3 rebounds per game with shooting percentages of .44/.41/.83. Look for her team to continue riding her coattails because, you know…it’s working.