NACOGDOCHES, Texas – The Texas A&M-Corpus Christi women's basketball team took home a loss Saturday afternoon in the final game of its longest road trip of the season, fading late and getting taken down by Stephen F. Austin by a final score of 74-56.
The Islanders (11-13, 3-10 SLC) wrapped up their road swing with a 1-3 record, defeating East Texas A&M in the opener before falling to UTRGV, Lamar and SFA (20-5, 10-4 SLC) in consecutive games. The loss on Saturday was also their second at the hands of the Ladyjacks this season, also falling to them in their first conference game of the season back on December 14.
Saturday's matchup featured a battle between the best offensive team in the Southland versus arguably the best defensive squad, and through the early goings, it was the Islanders' preferred style of play that won out. After both teams got on the board within the first minute of the game, the pace slowed down considerably, with the two scoring just four more points combined over a stretch that lasted nearly six minutes of game action. A&M-Corpus Christi finally got itself going on the offensive end on a bucket by graduate
Paige Allen, but SFA answered back in a big way to close out the first quarter, scoring 12 of the final 16 points of the period to go up by a margin of eight.
The Ladyjacks would extend this advantage up to 13 at one point in the second frame, but the Islanders punched back in a big way, catching fire on offense thanks to a barrage of three-point makes. Getting the flurry started was senior
Annukka Willstedt, who knocked down her first shot from distance of the game to bring the deficit back down to 10. After this came makes on back-to-back possessions from senior
Jaeda Whitner on two straight feeds from Willstedt, and to cap things off, Willstedt buried another triple of her own on a pass from Whitner to make it 12 points in just over a two-minute span. The Islanders ended up shooting 5-10 from distance during the second quarter, which was the primary reason that they ended up going into the break down just seven.
The momentum from the end of the first half did not carry over out of halftime for the Islanders, though, as SFA's high-powered offense finally started to really hit its stride by living at the free-throw line. The Islanders actually shot better from the field in the third quarter, knocking down eight of 18 shots as opposed to six of 15 from the hosts, but the Ladyjacks managed to get to the charity stripe a whopping 12 times and knocked down 10 of them. This helped to effectively neutralize the best offensive quarter of the day for A&M-Corpus Christi, who found itself back down by 12 heading into the final frame.
Now facing an uphill climb once again, the Islanders lost control of the rope on offense in the fourth, converting on just two of their 18 shots from the field and one of their 10 tries from distance in the period. This included a nearly six-minute stretch between makes, which when paired with a hot shooting quarter by SFA, all but ended their hopes at mounting any sort of comeback on the day.
Much like their game against Lamar on Thursday, the biggest difference for the Islanders came at the line, as they attempted seven and made nine fewer free throws than the Ladyjacks on the day. They also were outshot from distance nine to six despite neither team performing particularly well on such shots, which tipped the math game too far in the other direction.
Individually, the Islanders were led in scoring by Willstedt and Whitner, who both poured in 11 points apiece while knocking down 5-14 triples combined between the two. Allen also reached double figures with 10 while also grabbing nine rebounds despite only playing 24 minutes due to injury, and junior
Monae' Duffy also performed well with nine points and eight boards in 24 minutes off of the bench.
The Islanders will now come back to Corpus Christi for their first home game in more than two weeks on Thursday, hosting Houston Christian at the American Bank Center for Education Day, presented by Whataburger, at 10:30 a.m. CT.
#ShakasUp
