Salt Lake City, UT - The Texas A&M-Kingsville women's basketball team fell, 68-39 to the No-21-ranked Colorado Mesa Mavericks Friday night in a at the Westminster Classic in Utah.
The Mavericks had already played five regular season games entering the matchup, and leaned on their experienced roster against a Javelina team that features 11 new faces playing their first regular season game together. The young TAMUK roster battled till the finish, posting its best quarter on both ends of the floor in the fourth quarter, but ultimately fell short of CMU.
"We ran into an extremely well-coached team that will be in the regional tournament," Head Coach
Michael Madrid said. "There is so much to take from this game. We will watch film and continue to improve."
Mesa jumped out to a hot start, forcing seven turnovers and scoring 17 points in the first quarter to take a lead over the Javelinas that they would never surrender. TAMUK committed 24 total turnovers and shot 32.5 percent from the field, keeping the team from matching CMU's potent offense. Despite its large deficit, Kingsville continued to fight in the fourth, scoring 13 points and holding the Mavericks to 4-of-14 shooting from the field, by far their worst shooting quarter of the game.
Sophomore guard
Addisyn Parker tied with true freshman forward
Justine Aguilar to lead the team in scoring, each with 11 points. Parker added two rebounds, two assists, and three steals, while Aguilar went 4-of-5 from the field and chipped in a pair of rebounds, a block, and a steal. TAMUK's starting frontcourt of sophomore
Thalia Daniels and redshirt freshman
Caitlyn Benally both had strong days on the glass, combining for 17 rebounds. Benally had 10 of them, and added five points in her first collegiate game.
The game is the first of four in a row that the Javelinas will play away from home to start their year, before Lone Star Conference play begins with the team's home opener against UT-Tyler on December 4.
"I have to do a much better job preparing us to play moving forward," Madrid said. "We have another opportunity tomorrow to get better."
The Javelinas will face off with the Tournament's hosts, the Westminster Griffins, tomorrow afternoon with tipoff set for 2:00 p.m..
