COMMERCE, Texas – The Texas A&M-Corpus Christi women's basketball team was handed a tough loss on the road in their game on Thursday afternoon, playing into crunch time but ultimately falling to East Texas A&M by a final score of 65-60.
The Islanders (2-11, 1-5 SLC) came very close to completing a furious comeback down the stretch for the second year in a row in Commerce, cutting a 13-point deficit early in the fourth quarter down to as low as three with just four minutes left in the game. They were unable to fully close this gap as the clock ran down, however, as the Lions (7-6, 3-3 SLC) managed to convert with points on a few trips down the floor to help ice the game and keep the visitors from walking away with what would have been an incredible win.
The defeat came despite an excellent game from redshirt sophomore
Torie Sevier, who led all scorers on the afternoon with 22 points on an efficient 7-9 shooting from the field and 8-12 from the free throw line while also grabbing a team-high nine rebounds. This was both the second-highest point and rebound total of Sevier's career, coming just one shy of matching the 23 that she scored in the season opener against the College of Biblical Studies on November 3 in the former and two behind the 11 boards she recorded on New Year's Eve against New Orleans in the latter. Graduate
Chelsea Wooten also put together a very nice performance of her own, coming off the bench for the first time this season and tallying 16 points and four assists in 32 minutes of action.
The opening act on Thursday turned out to be a defensive one, as after a basket from Sevier on the first possession of the game and a jumper from the Lions on the other end, there would only be one made field goal over the next four minutes, a three pointer by junior
Asha Walker that put the Islanders in a small early lead. The lid started to come off the basket after this, however, a switch that occurred when East Texas A&M caught fire from beyond the arc, knocking down four of eight three-point attempts to turn A&M-Corpus Christi's advantage into a six-point deficit after the first 10 minutes.
The Lions continued to knock down threes after this, shooting 4-7 in the second quarter to make it a blistering hot 8-19 from deep in the first half. Unlike the end of the first, though, the Islanders were able to match this with their offense on the other end, scoring 19 points in the same time period to win the frame and go into the half down by just five. This stretch was powered primarily by Sevier, with the center scoring nine points while converting on both of her shots from the field and knocking down five free throws in six tries at the line. Wooten also helped to run the show, dropping in seven points to make it 16 combined between the two standout players.
This back-and-forth resumed right out of the break with the two teams nearly trading points blow for blow throughout the entire third quarter, which kept East Texas A&M's lead between two and six the entire period. It wouldn't be until the start of the fourth that the Lions started to make a move, with the hosts ripping off a 7-0 run across the first two minutes of the last frame to go ahead by their largest margin of the day.
Now trailing by 13, A&M-Corpus Christi quickly started to claw back, starting their effort with a bucket by senior
K'Nari Holliday and then following that up with a triple from Walker to get back within single digits. After a Lions layup, the team then scored seven more unanswered points on a Holliday layup, a Wooten three-pointer and a Sevier basket in the paint, which brought the score all the way down to 56-53 with just 4:16 on the clock. This would be the closest that the Islanders would get, however, as East Texas A&M managed to score on back-to-back possessions with just over a minute left to put them in an eight-point deficit that proved to be insurmountable.
The Islanders will try to shake off the tough loss in their next game over the weekend, completing their road trip against Northwestern State in Natchitoches on Saturday at 1 p.m.
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