CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas – The Texas A&M-Corpus Christi women's basketball team was defeated in their home matchup against Lamar on Saturday afternoon, playing down to the wire but ultimately falling by a final score of 58-52.
In a departure from the slow starts from their most recent games, the Islanders (4-20, 3-14 SLC) blitzed the Cardinals (15-9, 12-5 SLC) out of the gates with 15 of the first 19 points scored to take a double-digit lead not even six minutes into the contest. The offense was catalyzed during this stretch by the trio of graduate
Chelsea Wooten, senior
Marissa Shelton and redshirt sophomore
Torie Sevier, with Wooten leading the way with six points and the other two following close behind with five and four respectively to make up the entirety of the scoring. A run by Lamar soon after closed this gap, but the team still managed to secure the advantage after the first 10 minutes.
After this, the game slowed down to a screeching halt, as neither team managed to crack the 10-point mark in the second period. The Islanders did manage to get the upper hand, however, outscoring the visitors 9-8 thanks to a couple of threes by Shelton and junior
Asha Walker and another bucket from Wooten to give her eight on the day. When the dust settled, A&M-Corpus Christi went into the locker room with a 27-25 lead, putting itself in solid position for the final two frames.
The Islanders were unable to hold onto their cushion coming out of the break, however, with the Cardinals ripping off a 6-0 run at the beginning of the third to go out in front for the first time on the day. The hosts did manage to stem this tide after a quick timeout, immediately getting a bucket from Wooten and an and-one on a fastbreak by senior
Samora Watson to punch back with a nice response. After this, the two teams went back-and-forth, setting up a three-point game and a race to the finish in the game's home stretch.
The fourth started in similar fashion to how the third ended, with Walker scoring the first five points before Lamar then answered with a couple of points of its own. Where the game got away from the Islanders was in the middle of the period, as after a couple of free throws from sophomore
Rayna Williams at the 5:41 mark to bring them down by just one, they went cold from the field, failing to convert on a shot for a span that stretched nearly four minutes. While this was going on, the Cardinals poured in seven consecutive points, which built their lead back up to eight. A long triple from Wooten with 73 seconds left finally broke up the dry spell and made it a five-point game, but this would be the last of the scoring for A&M-Corpus Christi, taking home the tough loss as a result.
The Islanders actually managed to shoot a better percentage than the Cardinals both from the field overall and from behind the arc, posting marks of 36.7 percent and 33.3 percent respectively as opposed to 34.5 and 30 on the other side. The biggest swing factor ended up being the possession battle, though, as A&M-Corpus Christi was outrebounded 42-34 and was outscored 12-4 on second chances, which swung the math just far enough in the other direction.
The leading scorer among all players on the day ended up being Wooten, who reached 13 points on 4-9 shooting to put her into double figures for the sixth time in her last eight games. Shelton joined her fellow guard in that club with 11 points, doing do while also pacing the field with four assists. In addition to these two, Walker managed to reach a notable milestone on Saturday, as with her second three-pointer of the day, she pulled into a tie for 10
th place in A&M-Corpus Christi history for the most made triples in a single season.
The Islanders will now try to shake off the loss when they hit the road next week, starting a trip back to Louisiana with a showdown against Southeastern in Hammond on Thursday at 6 p.m.
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