CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas – The Texas A&M-Corpus Christi women's basketball team suffered a tough loss in their Southland Conference opener on Saturday afternoon, hanging close but ultimately coming up short against Stephen F. Austin by a final score of 66-59.
The loss snapped a two-game winning streak for the Islanders (5-4, 0-1 SLC), who had taken home victories in each of their previous games against Our Lady of the Lake and Dallas Christian. It also continued their woes against the Ladyjacks (8-2, 1-1 SLC), as it marked their fourth loss in a row to SFA in the matchup and their 24
th in 28 tries.
From the outset of Saturday's contest, the two opponents appeared to be very evenly matched, with the Islanders holding a two-point lead at the end of the first quarter in a period where neither team went ahead by more than four points. The first real sustained run came at the beginning of the second period, when after A&M-Corpus Christi went up 15-11 on junior
Samora Watson's sixth consecutive point, SFA responded by ripping off four straight buckets in quick succession to quickly turn the tide back in its favor. A similar stretch would come not long after as well, as the visitors managed to tally seven of the final eight points of the frame to go into halftime with a 28-21 advantage.
The action trended the same way out of the break, with the Islanders answering back with six points on a three pointer by senior
Jaeda Whitner and an and-one converted by graduate
Mireia Aguado to quickly bring the deficit back down to one. From here, however, the Ladyjacks caught fire from the field, knocking down a quartet of threes on their way to building their lead back up to a game-high 14. A&M-Corpus Christi did cobble together an 8-0 run near the end of the quarter on four points each from Aguado and senior
Tymberlin Criswell to bring things back down to single digits, but with just a few ticks off the clock, SFA converted on their fifth three of the period to suck the air out of the Dugan Wellness Center.
Back chasing once again, the Islanders could not muster up enough to complete the comeback in the game's final frame. They came to within as few as three after a 9-1 run led by a pair of buckets from graduate
Paige Allen forced a timeout, but the Ladyjacks held firm, tightening the screws on defense and handing the hosts the nine-point loss.
The biggest undoing for A&M-Corpus Christi was its inability to hold onto the ball against SFA's full-court press, turning it over 22 times and allowing 25 points off of them as a result. This negated another great defensive effort by the team, as it managed to force 23 turnovers of its own while holding its opponent under 50 percent shooting from the field for the ninth straight game to open the season.
Individually, the Islanders were led by Criswell, who poured in 15 points while knocking down five of her 11 field goal attempts and three of her five tries from downtown. Aguado came in right behind her with 14 while also dishing out five assists, and Allen and Watson rounded out the scorers in double figures with 11 and 10 respectively. Allen and junior
Monae' Duffy also continued their great work on the boards, with both grabbing nine rebounds apiece to account for just over half of the team total by themselves.
The Islanders will now hit the road for their next two games, traveling south to Edinburg to take part in the UTRGV Holiday Classic. They will open up their slate on Thursday at 4 p.m. against Kansas City before turning around to play Eastern Michigan at the same time the next day to wrap things up.
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