EDINBURG, Texas – The Texas A&M-Corpus Christi women's basketball team was taken down in the second South Texas Showdown, presented by Rally Credit Union, of the season on Saturday, falling in a road contest to UTRGV in Edinburg by a final score of 56-37.
The Islanders (11-11, 3-8 SLC) could not avenge their previous defeat to the Vaqueros (11-12, 6-6 SLC), making it the first time that they were swept in the South Texas Showdown since the 2020 season. The team did secure the attendance point in the standings despite the loss, however, moving the year-long tally to 17.0-10.0 in favor of A&M-Corpus Christi.
Much like in the first stop of their road trip against East Texas A&M on Thursday, the Islanders came out of the gates ice cold on the offensive end on Saturday, missing each of their first 12 shots and getting held off of the scoreboard entirely through the first eight minutes of the game. They finally managed to take the lid off of the basket on an offensive rebound and putback from graduate
Nabaweeyah McGill, but this would be it for them in the opening quarter, finishing the frame shooting 1-16 from the field overall, 0-6 from three-point range and 0-2 from the free throw line. This slump allowed UTRGV to build a strong early cushion, with the home team using a trio of long-distance makes to take a 15-2 lead into the first break.
The second quarter was a lot kinder to the Islanders, as they began to create some positive momentum toward closing the early deficit that they found themselves in. The climb back began with senior
Jaeda Whitner, who came off the bench and nailed a pair of triples on back-to-back possessions to bring things back down to single digits all by herself. This proved to be a spark for the team on the offensive end, with senior
Annukka Willstedt burying a three of her own on the next trip down to cut it to four and graduate
Paige Allen getting her ledger started with a couple of buckets inside later in the period. At the same time, A&M-Corpus Christi started to turn the screws on the Vaqueros on defense to the tune of just three makes on 13 shots, which helped the team close the gap all the way down to six heading into halftime.
This turned out to be the Islanders' best punch of the afternoon, however, as UTRGV started out the second half by ripping off an immediate 10-0 run to put the visitors right back down by 16, the largest of the game to that point. This stretch was brought about by another cold spell for A&M-Corpus Christi on offense, with the team putting the ball in the basket just one time through the first six and a half minutes of the period and three times in total on 15 shot attempts. The Vaqueros would go on to lead by as much as 23 early in the fourth, a deficit that kept the Islanders from mounting a similar comeback effort to the one they put together just two days earlier.
The 37 points that the Islanders scored in total was their lowest of the season to date, surpassing the 42 that they put up against both Baylor on November 17 and Northwestern State on January 9. They shot just 24.2 percent from the field and 25 percent from behind the arc, which made it hard to sustain any runs despite only turning the ball over 10 times, their best performance in that category this year by a good margin.
The best individual performer of the day was Whitner, who tallied nine points on 3-7 shooting from distance to lead the team in scoring. Allen came in right behind in the points column with eight while also grabbing four rebounds and dishing out two assists, and senior
Tymberlin Criswell scored six with three steals in her 14 minutes off the bench.
The Islanders will now try to regroup when they hit the road once again next week, opening with their first matchup of the season against Lamar on Thursday at 7 p.m. before then heading to Nacogdoches to square off against Stephen F. Austin on Saturday at 2 p.m.
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