Hornbuckle, Zolman pick up Ely's slack

RUSTON, La. (AP) -- Pat Summitt knew it wouldn't be easy to beat

Louisiana Tech on the road, and the Tennessee coach was right.

The Lady Techsters put up a solid effort, but the Lady Vols (No. 10 ESPN/USA Today; No. 9 AP) came through with a 70-59 victory on Wednesday night. And

it may have taken a technical foul against Summitt to get her team

in gear.

With about five minutes to go in the first half, Summitt drew a

technical after Louisiana Tech went ahead 23-22 on a 3-point basket

by Aarica Ray-Boyd.

"But I think that wound up firing us up a little," Summitt

said. "After that, I told our team, 'now let's start playing and

get to winning this game"

Alexis Hornbuckle led Tennessee with 17 points as Tennessee

handed Louisiana Tech consecutive losses at home for the first time

in 14 seasons. In their last home game, Tech was beaten by

Illinois.

Hornbuckle made 7 of 12 shots and had five steals for the Lady

Vols (6-2). She also hit a 10-foot jumper and followed with a free

throw at 5:25 to play after Tech (4-3) got within 57-52 on a

3-pointer by Lakiste Barkus.

Tennessee, which got 15 points from Shanna Zolman, them moved

ahead by eight points and were never in trouble.

"After that, they kept taking advantage of the mistakes we were

making, plus the fatigue that might have set in with us," Tech

coach Kurt Budke said. "Tennessee is the type of team where you

can't make many mistakes because they're going to take advantage of

them. But overall, I was very proud of the effort and performance

we gave. I think we took a big step forward tonight, even though we

lost."

Tasha Crain led Louisiana Tech with 17 points and seven

rebounds, Shan Moore added 14 points and Barkus 12.