BEAUMONT, Texas – The Texas A&M-Corpus Christi women's basketball team was taken down in their road contest against Lamar on Thursday evening, hanging in tough but ultimately coming up short by a final score of 63-57.
The loss was the second in a row for the Islanders (11-12, 3-9 SLC), as they also fell in their most recent game against UTRGV last Saturday. It also served as a form of revenge for the Cardinals (15-6, 10-2 SLC), whom A&M-Corpus Christi defeated in the finals of the 2024 Southland Conference Tournament in the last meeting between the two.
Squaring off against one of the top teams in the conference, the Islanders showed a high level of energy from the opening tip, getting their offense going strong early on. They started the evening off with a pair of made jumpers in their first two possessions, the first being a three-pointer from graduate
Mireia Aguado and the second a two by senior
Annukka Willstedt, and soon after came a pair of nice cuts from Aguado and graduate
Nabaweeyah McGill to hand four more points on the board. This punch was answered right back by Lamar, though, as the hosts scored the final seven points of the quarter to go up by three after the first.
From here, the two teams took turns throwing punches, playing to a stalemate throughout the entirety of the second period. After the Cardinals scored the first basket of the frame to go up by five, the Islanders brought it back down to one almost instantly on Willstedt layup and a pair of free throws from senior
Tymberlin Criswell in back-to-back possessions. After this, neither squad took a lead of more than two until the final seconds of the quarter, when Lamar buried a triple with just five ticks left on the clock to head into halftime with a 24-21 advantage.
The break did not change the back-and-forth nature of the game, either, with the two essentially trading points for the first seven minutes of the second half. At this point was when the first big swing of the game came to be, though, as after layup from graduate
Paige Allen to make it a three-point game, the Cardinals would rip off an 8-0 run, bringing the Islanders' deficit up to double digits for the first time all night.
This stretch left A&M-Corpus Christi needing to play catch up in the final frame, a task that proved to be too tough to handle for the visitors. After falling behind by as much as 12, the Islanders did manage to force multiple Lamar turnovers down the stretch to claw their way back to within four with 25 seconds left, but with the clock not in their favor, they fell victim to the foul game and failed to complete the comeback effort as a result.
In a game that played itself out incredibly close in multiple different facets, the biggest difference proved to be the discrepancy in free throws between the two teams. The Islanders did manage to shoot a better percentage from the line than the Cardinals, but Lamar got to the line 12 more times than they did and converted on six more, which made up the entirety of their deficit right there. They also didn't take advantage of the turnovers that they forced as well as their opponents did, scoring just 13 points off of 16 forced turnovers as opposed to 18 points off of 15 by Lamar.
Despite the loss, the Islanders had three players reach double figures in scoring, with Criswell leading the way with 14 on 4-9 shooting in her return to the starting lineup. Behind her, Allen reached 11 points and 10 rebounds to mark her fourth double-double of the season, and Aguado tallied 11 herself while also filling up the stat sheet for seven rebounds and five assists.
The Islanders will now try to end their road swing on a high note, traveling to Nacogdoches to take on Stephen F. Austin on Saturday at 2 p.m. in a rematch of their very first conference game of the season.
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