CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas – The Texas A&M-Corpus Christi women's basketball team came up on the short end of its game against McNeese in its return to the Hilliard Center on Thursday evening, falling in a defensive battle by a final score of 59-42.
The conference showdown proved to be a struggle on offense for both teams all evening long, with the Islanders (2-13, 1-7 SLC) holding the Southland-leading Cowgirls (13-4, 7-1 SLC) to just 34 percent shooting from the field, well below their season average of 40.2 percent. The hosts shot just 35 percent themselves however, which came while they also attempted just 43 shots in total as opposed to 62 from McNeese.
This slugfest on defense started right from the opening tip, with the two teams combining for just a lone point on a free throw by sophomore
Rayna Williams over the first three and a half minutes of the game. The first field goal of the game would not come until the Cowgirls got a layup to fall at the 5:13 mark, and for the Islanders, theirs came at 4:11 when senior
Samora Watson drove into the paint and got a tough spinning jumper to find the bottom of the net. After this basket, McNeese would put together a 6-0 run to go into the first quarter break up by a total of 11-3.
The beginning of the second period was a little kinder to the Islanders, as they were able to string together some offense with four consecutive points from Watson and a three by senior
Marissa Shelton to keep themselves within striking distance. This momentum wouldn't last, though, as the Cowgirls caught fire from three-point range, knocking down a trio of shots from distance to help extend a lead that had gotten as low as seven all the way up to 16 at halftime. This stretch for A&M-Corpus Christi was also made worse by the fact that Watson went down with an unfortunate injury near the end of the half, rolling her ankle after landing on the foot of a McNeese player and subsequently missing the remainder of the night.
Without their leading scorer, the Islanders could not get their offense humming out of the locker room, getting outscored 15-9 in the third quarter. They finally managed to find a spark on that end once the final frame kicked off, scoring 21 points on 8-11 shooting while getting 10 from senior
K'Nari Holliday and eight from graduate
Chelsea Wooten to help outpace McNeese in a quarter for the first time on the day. This helped to make the final margin closer, but their deficit from earlier in the night was too large at that point.
The leading scorer on the day for A&M-Corpus Christi ended up being Holliday, who did all her damage in the last period to finish with 10 points and six rebounds. Wooten was the next closest with her eight, and Watson finished with six in just 17 minutes before going down. In addition to this, both Wooten and redshirt senior
Trinity Slocum managed to grab 10 rebounds apiece, which marked the second time that two Islanders reached double-digit boards in a game after Williams and redshirt sophomore
Torie Sevier did so on December 31 against New Orleans.
The Islanders will now try to shake off the loss in their next time out on Saturday, hosting Southeastern Louisiana at the Hilliard Center at 1 p.m.
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