SAN ANTONIO - The Texas A&M-Kingsville women's basketball program ended up on the backend of a 78-59 decision to Minnesota State on Friday at Bill Greehey Arena on the first day of the St. Mary's Thanksgiving Classic.

"Any time you have 34 turnovers, give up 21 offensive rebounds and your opponent has 22 more shot attempts, it spells disaster," said head coach Michael Madrid. "Minnesota State is an extremely talented and aggressive team that plays intelligently.

"More importantly, they play hard, and we never matched their intensity. We had a couple of runs to cut it to 10 but had too many turnovers that led to big runs for them. We will learn from this and move forward to our next opponent."

The Javelinas (3-2) fell behind early to the Mavericks (4-0) in the opening minutes of the game and never recovered en route to the loss.

MSU put away the first eight points of the game before sophomore Kryslyn Jones (Edmond, Okla.) got TAMUK on the board with a mid-range jumper at the 7:56 mark. Turnovers proved costly in the opening minutes as the Mavericks swarmed the Javelinas and picked up seven steals while the Blue and Gold were charged with 11 turnovers in the first 10 minutes of the game.

The Mavericks held an 18-9 lead going into the second and soon pushed the Javelinas' deficit to double-digits. Junior Brianna Pena (Weslaco, Texas), in her first game back, found the bottom of the net at the eight-minute mark of the frame that set the score at 22-13 before a basket from Mikayla Nachazel pushed the gap to 11.

MSU kept TAMUK well out of reach for a 38-21 advantage at the break.

The Javelinas came out guns blazing in the third quarter as they piled up the first eight points of the stanza, mirroring what their opponents did at the beginning of the game. Freshman Devon Williams (Gonzales, Texas) ignited the run on a second-chance bucket during the opening possession, while a steal from classmate Jayde Tschritter (Corpus Christi, Texas) led to a fast break bucket from junior Mia Cherry (Brock, Texas) that prompted a Maverick timeout to cap the streak with 7:24 showing on the clock.

MSU wiped away all progress with the next six points in the contest and methodically built up a 20-point lead by the end of the quarter with a 61-39 cushion heading into the fourth. The final 10 minutes consisted of the Javelinas unable to whittle the deficit down en route to the final as they never crossed the double-digit barrier.

Cherry led the Blue and Gold with 13 points on 5-for-8 shooting from the floor to go with three rebounds. Jones added 10 of her own as she also picked up a pair of boards.

Pena, seeing her first action in 2021-22 as a returning All-Lone Star Conference second team selection from the previous season, finished with eight points, two assists and two rebounds off the bench.

Get the Official Javelina Athletics Mobile App presented by Whataburger today! Download on the App Store or Get It on Google Play to keep up with all the news, scores and updates of your favorite Javelinas

Watch your Javelinas live today on the Javelina Sports Network sponsored by Mendoza's Pharmacy. To keep up-to-date with Javelina Women's Basketball, follow the program on Facebook /JavelinaWBB or Twitter @Javelina_WBB

######