Kingsville - In its final regular season game of the calendar year, the Texas A&M - Kingsville women's basketball team fell, 56-48, in a hard-fought battle with the Eastern New Mexico Greyhounds.
Neither team shot better than 41% from the field and, though the Javelinas made it close late, they shot 0-of-14 from three and fell to 2-3 in conference play.
"I thought it came down to offensive production," Head Coach
Michael Madrid said. "We weren't as smooth offensively as we've been the last couple of games, and shots didn't fall for us, obviously, from the three point line. What we can't do is allow not making shots to affect everything else, and I think that's kind of what happened to us in some way."
The Greyhounds entered the game as the only team remaining in the Lone Star Conference with an undefeated record against conference opponents. Following the game, they stretched their winning streak to eight games and strengthened their hold on the top of the West Division.
Despite the poor shooting and loss, Coach Madrid said his team gave him a lot of things to like.
"I thought we hit a lot of the things we talked about doing," Madrid said. "They're a team that averages 17 offensive rebounds, so our goal was 10, and we held them to 10. Our goal was to take care of the basketball, they were forcing 23 turnovers a game - we had 12 turnovers."
Kingsville committed just three of those turnovers after halftime, and held Eastern well below its usual scoring average of 78.8 points per game. ENMU's offense entered the day leading the conference in field goal percentage, the Javelinas held the team to 41% shooting.
Though TAMUK was able to make a run, cutting its deficit to just five points entering the fourth quarter, the team wasn't able to get it any closer and, ultimately, never held a lead in the game.
Fresh off of an LSC Offensive Player of the Week performance, junior forward
Shelby Ray led the team in scoring with 14 points, which she paired with six rebounds, an assist, two steals, and a block. Senior forward
Veyda Lake posted her second straight efficient scoring game off the bench, joining Ray in double figures with 10 points on 5-of-6 shooting. Though she did most of her scoring late, senior guard
Abby Bala worked her way to nine points and added three assists and three rebounds.
At Christmas break, the team sits at 6-5 overall, with its next home regular season matchup set for January 9th, when the team faces off against Cameron at 5:30 p.m., a game that will start a stretch of four straight home contests.
"Our goal every year is to become the best basketball team we can become," Madrid said. "We've played some solid teams that have challenged us. I do think we're a lot better right now than we were when we went to Utah early in the year, so I definitely see that as a positive."
Though they're next regular season game isn't until January 3rd, the Javelinas will play Texas Lutheran on Friday at 1pm in an exhibition contest.
