Austin - The Texas A&M Kingsville women's basketball team grabbed its second straight win with hot shooting and intense defense, taking down the St. Edward's Hilltoppers, 55-42, in a road Lone Star Conference matchup.
The win is the Javelinas' third in its last four games, all of which were LSC contests. At 8-5 on the year, they are now above .500 in conference play (4-3) for the first time since they were 1-0 following a road win over TAMIU.
"Extremely proud of our effort," Head Coach
Michael Madrid said. "We had multiple players step up in crucial moments. We tell our team to always be ready because you never know when it's going to be your opportunity. We got frustrated at times but were able to maintain our composure and finish the fourth strong."
As has been the case all season, Kingsville's defense was strong once again, holding St. Edward's to a tie for its lowest scoring total on the year, and allowing the team to shoot just 28.6% from the field.
"I thought defensively we were solid," Madrid said. "Our players work so hard on that end and it's fun to watch them have success. We always say defense travels and we had a great road trip defensively."
The team also forced the Hilltoppers into 22 turnovers, helping a stellar defensive performance that came just two days after St. Mary's similarly fell victim to the third-best scoring defense in the conference, as the Rattlers were held to 46 points and committed 19 turnovers.
Four different Javelinas had multiple steals in today's game, led by a pair of seniors, forward
Janessa Payne and guard
Abby Bala, who each had three. The other two with two steals were junior forward
Shelby Ray and redshirt sophomore forward
Kaycee Groves. Groves has now had multiple steals in each of her last five games.
Offensively, Groves was the team's leading scorer for the second straight game. In her second collegiate start, she posted game-highs in points and rebounds, with 14 and nine respectively. Ray and senior forward
Veyda Lake each joined Groves with double-figures in the scoring column. Lake added two rebounds and two assists and shot 4-of-6 from the floor - her 11th-straight game shooting at least 50% on her field goal tries. Ray was all over the stat sheet, pairing 10 points with eight rebounds, two assists, a block, and two steals. As a team, Kingville shot 41% from three and won the rebound battle, 38-29.
The game started as an entertaining one, with the first frame going back-and-forth as the team traded runs. The Javelinas scored the first eight points of the game, followed by eight straight from the Hilltoppers to tie it up. The rest of the first saw the teams trade buckets, with a buzzer-beating triple off glass giving SEU a one-point lead at the end of the quarter.
The second, however, was where Kingsville grabbed control. Both teams tighten their clamps defensively to open the frame, and the Javelinas were the first to take the lid off the rim. They scored the first 11 points of the quarter and held the Hilltoppers scoreless for the first five and a half minutes of the frame.
While St. Edward's made a run in the third quarter, TAMUK had answers for every Hilltopper blitz and allowed SEU to lead for just 50 seconds of game time. In the final quarter, Kingsville's defense tightened up once again, allowing just six Hilltopper points in a frame that included an 8-0 Javelina run to pull away for good.
The Javelinas will now look ahead to a four-game home stand where the team will host Cameron and Oklahoma Christian, followed by Texas Woman's and UT - Tyler.
