LAKE CHARLES, La. – The Texas A&M-Corpus Christi women's basketball team was taken down by McNeese in its penultimate road game of the season on Sunday, starting out hot but failing to continue the momentum and falling by a final score of 72-55.
Like in their win over Southeastern two days earlier, the Islanders (5-21, 4-15 SLC) got out of the gates quick against the conference-leading Cowgirls (24-4, 18-1 SLC), winning the opening quarter 19-15 in large part due to an excellent 7-11 opening from the field offensively. The scoring was led solely by three starters, with senior
K'Nari Holliday leading the way with eight points and senior
Marissa Shelton and graduate
Chelsea Wooten following close behind with six and five apiece. These three also powered a 7-0 run near the end of the frame, a stretch that put the team up by eight for its biggest lead of the day.
This stretch was short-lived, though, as McNeese responded with a 9-0 run of its own at the beginning of the second to quickly get its advantage right back. Holliday managed to stem this tide with a basket of her own to get her into double digits in points on the day, but the Cowgirls would keep the pressure on, eventually outscoring A&M-Corpus Christi 24-9 in this frame to put the visitors in an 11-point hole going into the break. Out of halftime, this would continue to grow, eventually reaching 23 at its biggest point in the fourth.
Near the end of the game, the Islanders did show some fight, pulling even with the Cowgirls in the fourth in total after ending the game by scoring 11 of the final 16 points. Shelton in particular found her groove at this time, scoring eight while knocking down both her shots from the field and three of her four attempts from the line in the final 10 minutes. This proved to be not enough, though, sending the team back home with the loss.
The game on Sunday was actually one of the best of the season from the field for the Islanders, as they knocked down 48.7 percent of their shots from the field overall and 37.5 from distance for what was a very efficient day in that regard. The factor that counteracted this was the turnover battle, though, as they committed 30 and allowed 40 points off of them while only forcing 10 of their own on the other end.
The leading scorer for the team on the day was Shelton, who finished with 20 on 6-11 shooting overall and 4-8 from behind the arc. This marked her third time reaching that threshold on the season, and it was just one point off the career high that she set back on January 29 in a win over UIW. Right behind her, Holliday recorded 18 points and seven rebounds in her 32 minutes, pulling her to within just 13 points of reaching 1,000 for her collegiate career with three games to play.
The Islanders will now return back to Corpus Christi for their final homestand of the 2025-26 season next week, starting off with a matchup against East Texas A&M at the Hilliard Center on Thursday at 7 p.m.
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