CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas – The Texas A&M-Corpus Christi women's basketball team lost a heartbreaker on Monday night, going down to the wire but ultimately falling to McNeese late by a final score of 59-54.
The loss was the third in a row for the Islanders (10-10, 2-7 SLC), with their last win coming against Houston Christian back on January 16. It also snapped a four-game winning streak overall against the Cowgirls (8-12, 3-6 SLC) and an eight-game streak at home dating all the way back to January 8, 2011.
Coming off of the heels of a tough loss to Nicholls in their last game on Saturday, the Islanders came out of the gates with a good amount of energy on the defensive end on Monday, stifling a McNeese offense that ranks in the top half of the Southland Conference in points per game. A&M-Corpus Christi held the Cowgirls off of the scoreboard entirely for the first eight minutes and limited them to just 16 percent shooting from the field in the first half, with the visitors converting on just four of their 25 attempts.
In contrast, the Islanders got some good early offense themselves, shooting above 50 percent from the field in the first quarter and pouring in 14 points apiece in both the first and the second. Leading the charge during this period was graduate
Mireia Aguado, who carried the load to the tune of eight points on 4-6 shooting to go along with five rebounds. They also got an early spark from its reserves, with both senior
Jaeda Whitner and junior
Samora Watson getting on the board themselves with six points apiece to help the Islanders go into halftime up double digits.
This momentum did not hold out of the break, though, as A&M-Corpus Christi's recent second half woes came back once again. The team's strong defense started to slip in the third, allowing McNeese to score 26 points in the frame on 10-19 from the field. The Cowgirls also knocked down four shots from distance in the frame, which helped them completely erase the Islanders' lead and bring the score all leveled up headed into the final period.
Now locked in a tight battle again, the two teams proceeded to trade buckets throughout much of the fourth, with neither team able to take more than a four-point lead and playing to a tie game with just 51 seconds remaining after a clutch fastbreak layup by senior
Annukka Willstedt. The Cowgirls answered this with a bucket in the paint to go back up once again, and with a chance to tie or take the lead, the Islanders could not answer, turning it over with 12 ticks on the clock to essentially seal their fate. The team tried to play the foul game to keep its hopes alive, but it proved to be too little too late, getting bested by a final margin of just five.
The biggest turning point in the game was the three-point shooting for both teams, with McNeese catching fire to the tune of eight makes on 20 attempts as opposed to just three hits on 11 shots from A&M-Corpus Christi. The Islanders also lost both the rebounding and the turnover battles, getting edged in the former 45 to 39 and the latter 17-14.
In the scoring department, the Islanders were paced by Aguado, as the Barcelona native finished with 13 while also grabbing seven rebounds. She was joined in double figures by both Whitner and graduate
Paige Allen at 11, with the former knocking down three triples in four attempts and the latter securing a team-high eight boards.
The Islanders will now have a short turnaround for their next games, first hitting the road for a matchup against East Texas A&M in Commerce on Thursday at 6:30 p.m. before heading south to square off against UTRGV in Edinburg at 2 p.m. on Saturday for the second South Texas Showdown, presented by Rally Credit Union of the season.
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