Durant – The Texas A&M-Kingsville women’s basketball team gave a talented Southeastern Oklahoma squad a run for its money on its home floor Friday night, but came up short 64-54. The loss dropped the Javelinas to 2-6 while Southeastern Oklahoma improved to 7-1.
A pair of freshmen led the Javelinas in scoring as Kayla Naylor (Calallen) and Sandra Maldonado each had 10 points. It was a career-high in scoring for Maldonado while Naylor added six assists, five rebounds and a steal while playing all 40 minutes.
Maldonado had an excellent game, hitting 3-of-6 shots from the floor while playing for a foul-plagued Lana Toki. Toki, the team’s leading scorer and rebounder, played just 20 minutes and was held to season-low four points.
Both teams had played the previous night, with the Savage Storm trouncing LSC foe Texas Woman’s University at home 74-42.
Southeastern led by as many as 10 in the first half, but the Javelinas put together a 10-4 run over the final five minutes of the first half to cut the advantage to 32-28 at the half.
The Savage Storm led the entire second half, but the Javelinas refused to go away, trailing by just four, 58-54 with 3:38 left to play.
But the Javelina offense went into the deep freeze, unable to score the rest of the game as Southeastern finished the game on a 6-0 run.
“We hung with them until the last two minutes,” said Javelina head coach Dina Kangas. “Kayla did a great job of handling their pressure. We played solid defense. We just couldn’t get over the hump. We were happy with how we played. They are a very good team with four solid seniors. I don’t like moral victories, but the kids played really hard tonight.”
The Javelinas will take final exams this week and return to the court December 16th to host Texas Woman’s University.
