Despite a career night from Alexis Brown, the Eagles were bested by the Troy Trojans at home 81-97 on Thursday.

For the Eagles, the first quarter was a back-and-forth affair that ultimately lead to a tie at 23 all. Offensively, GS was powered by their leading scorer, junior guard Alexis Brown, who scored 12 points in her first 10 minutes of play. It wasn’t just Brown making noise on offense for the Eagles, as sophomore guard Tatum Barber hit two threes of her own. Behind Brown and Barber, GS would go 6-8 from behind the arc.

Troy couldn’t seem to make a basket in the first quarter, hitting 35 percent of their two-point attempts and 20 percent of their three-point attempts, but the Trojans made up for their shooting woes by winning the boards, out-rebounding the Eagles 13-6.

The second quarter started much like the first, with both teams trading shots and exchanging leads. The lead never got larger than five points for either teams, and GS saw success from behind the arc yet again. As a team the Eagles went 4-5 on three-point tries, including two more by Brown. The team’s leading scorer would finish with 20 points as a result her stellar three-point shooting. After the loss, Brown talked about how she felt she might be in store for a career day.

“Yeah I did,” Brown said. “I felt good, my shots were falling in shoot-around. I’ve been coming in extra and putting up shots.”

Despite the sharpshooting from the home team, Troy picked up the pace and started to score points with ease. The Trojans hit over 57 percent of their shots and finished the second quarter with a three-point lead.

Already trailing by three to start the half, the Eagles were quickly buried by a Trojan three-pointer that doubled the score. GS was outscored 17-22 in the third quarter and would never overcome the deficit. Brown put up nine of the Eagles’ 17 points in the quarter.

Things didn’t get much better for GS in the fourth, as Troy showed why they lead the Sun Belt in wins and pulled away with the game. The Trojans outscored the Eagles by eight points in the final period of action and continued their domination on the boards by pulling down 17. Troy nearly out-rebounded GS by double, pulling down 54 rebounds to the Eagles 28.

After the game, Head Coach Kip Drown talked about his team’s effort against a good Troy team, and what it’s going to take to right the ship for the rest of the season.

“If we keep competing the way we competed tonight, the way we competed last week in Louisiana, and if we keep getting better, we’re going to win basketball games,” Drown said “We were 5-5 going to Georgia and we lost there, and now we’ve been on a five, six game losing streak, so it’s kind of snowballed a little bit on us, but the kids continue to work hard and continue to get better so we’re going to win basketball games.”

Brown finished with 34 points while shooting 8-10 from three-point range, as well as getting her first double-double as an Eagle.

GS falls to 0-5 in conference play and are in the middle of a six-game losing streak as they welcome the South Alabama Jaguars to Hanner Fieldhouse on Saturday. Tip-off is set for 2:00 p.m.

Ryan Kostensky, The George-Anne Sports Reporter, gasports@georgiasouthern.edu