CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas – The Texas A&M-Corpus Christi women's basketball team was taken down in its return to the American Bank Center on Thursday evening, dropping a defensive battle to Northwestern State by a final score of 46-42.
The 42 points scored matched the lowest in any game this season for the Islanders (9-6, 1-3 SLC), with the other instance coming in a loss to Baylor in Waco on November 17. The loss also snapped an 11-game win streak for them against the Lady Demons (7-7, 4-1 SLC), with their last loss in the matchup prior being all the way back on January 13, 2016.
The start of Thursday's game proved to be historic in more ways than one, as the two teams went into halftime scoring just 17 combined points, with Northwestern State holding a narrow 9-8 lead at the break. On the offensive end, this output marked the lowest scoring half for the Islanders in program history, surpassing the nine that they put up in the first half against Texas on November 30, 2012. This was matched by an equally impressive showing on the other side, however, as the nine points that they surrendered on defense also went down as a new program record, just besting the 10 that they allowed in both the first half against Utah Valley on March 3, 2005 and the second half against St. Thomas on December 12, 2022.
The first and second quarters proved to be near mirrors of each other, with the Lady Demons outscoring the Islanders 7-2 in the former before the home team reversed it with a 6-2 showing in the latter to bring the deficit down to just one. A&M-Corpus Christi suffered through a scoring drought of nearly 12 minutes during this stretch after getting its first basket on a layup by graduate
Mireia Aguado with 8:44 left in the opening period, not converting on another until graduate
Paige Allen got one to go with 6:53 left in the second. The team leaned on its defense to keep them in it during this dry spell, holding Northwestern State to a 10-minute drought of its own to prevent things from getting out of hand.
The lid finally came off of the basket once the break concluded, with the Islanders nearly surpassing the combined first-half outputs of both teams in the third quarter alone with a 16-point showing. The catalyst for this run proved to be senior
Annukka Willstedt, who tallied eight points in the frame after knocking down a pair of three-point tries and getting a bucket at the rim in transition to fall. The first triple by Willstedt helped level the game back up at 11, and the second gave A&M-Corpus Christi its biggest lead of the game at five, where it would stay heading into the final frame.
Unfortunately for the Islanders, however, this advantage would not hold, as the dam finally broke on them on the defensive end. After holding the Lady Demons to just 19 combined points in the first three quarters, the team allowed them to explode for 27 in the fourth, which surpassed the 23 that they surrendered to Texas State in the second quarter on November 9 as the biggest total for any period this season. The dagger came in the form of an 8-0 run by Northwestern State that started at the 5:51 mark, which allowed the visitors to turn a two-point deficit into a six-point lead with just 4:20 to go. The Islanders did fight back to bring things as close as two after this, but in the end, the hole they found themselves in proved to be too much to climb out of.
The two teams were very evenly matched in the scoresheet at the end, with the Islanders actually sinking two more shots than their opponents on the same number of attempts from the field. The difference in the game proved to be from the three-point line and the charity stripe, though, as the Lady Demons made three more triples and five more free throws on the day, helping to erase the 10-point advantage that A&M-Corpus Christi had in points in the paint.
Individually, the best showings on the night came from Aguado and Willstedt, who combined to tally 25 of the team's 42 points. Aguado led all scorers on the squad with 14, doing so on an efficient 5-8 shooting while draining her lone attempt from beyond the arc. Willstedt came in right behind her with 11, knocking down four of her eight shots from the field and three of her four three-pointers. The two of them combined to shoot 4-5 from distance, while the rest of the team failed to convert on any of their 11 tries.
The Islanders will now look to shake off the tough loss in the second game of their homestand on Saturday, hosting UTRGV at 1 p.m. at the American Bank Center for the first South Texas Showdown, presented by Rally Credit Union of the season.
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