Kingsville - The Texas A&M-Kingsville women's basketball team struggled to score against the Angelo St. Rambelle defense, falling, 69-48, in Kingsville on Saturday.
Kingsville shot just 26.8% from the field and were unable to keep pace with a hot-shooting Rambelle team who took an early lead and never looked back. Though the Javelinas were out-scored by just four in the second half, they were unable to make up their early deficit, and drop to 3-4 in the new year.
"I thinking five of our first six possessions were turnovers and we quickly dug ourselves a hole, which led, obviously, to not playing defense and they shot complete lights out," Head Coach
Michael Madrid said. "Credit to them, they were prepared, they played hard, they were ready to play and we didn't match any energy, physicality, and competitive spirit tonight."
ASU wasted no time finding the bottom of the net, as the team used a 14-2 run, and 4-of-8 shooting from distance, in the first quarter to take an early double digit lead. Kingsville kept the game within 12, and cut its deficit to single digits multiple times through the second quarter, but another run from Angelo, this time 10-2 to close the half, put the game out of reach.
Freshman guard Jadeyn Perez led the team in scoring with 18 points on 4-of-9 shooting with five rebounds and an assist. She was the only TAMUK player to score in double figures, but one one of five who had at least four rebounds as the team kept the all-important rebound battle close. Redshirt freshman Cailtyn Benally came of the bench to tie Perez for the team high with five.
"There in the fourth quarter, I thought let's get our freshmen some minutes here and get them some experience on the floor, and I thought Angelo kind of did the same thing, but I thought that was good for them to get on the floor in the last quarter and get some experience," Madrid said.
TAMUK will now head on the road for contests against Western New Mexico and Sul Ross St. this Thursday and Saturday respectively before returning home to face off with St. Edward's on Pack the House Night (February 5, 5:30 p.m.) and St. Mary's on Play4Kay Day (February 7, 1:00 p.m.).
