The Lady Buffs were in action on Jan. 28 for the second time in two days to take on Texas A&M-Kingsville. While the team had to fight to hold onto the win on Jan. 26, that wasn’t the case on Saturday night as they handed TAMUK a 32-point defeat.
WTAMU took an early lead when Casey Land made a three-pointer, but Kingsville would grab the lead until Kenisha Harris made a pair of free throws at the 12:05 mark. The teams would continue to trade the lead for most of the half until WT went on an 8-2 run to leave the half with a 30-23 lead.
The Lady Buffs would allow the Javelinas to open up the scoring in the second half, but turned on the heat for the rest of the half, going on an 8-0 run to lead by 13. The team would go on a scoring spree for the next 20 minutes, scoring 39 points. The team would also play excellent defense, only allowing TAMUK to put 14 points on the board.
“We just never settled down and got in a rhythm in offense,” Head Coach Krista Gerlich said. “So, I thought we did a better job of that in the second half. But the kids just did a good job on really being focused on the first three minutes of the second half and kind of putting the dagger in [TAMUK] instead of letting them hang around.”
The team’s 69-37 win kept alive their six-game winning streak over the Javelinas, dating back to 2009. Devin Griffin would lead the team in points with 17 with Kenisha Harris following closely behind with 14 points. The win takes the Lady Buffs to an overall record of 11-8 and 9-4 in the Lone Star Conference.
“With every win we gain, [it’s] another step to our goal so we’re just trying to get better,” Forward Devin Griffin said. “I think it’s way easier to correct things off of a win than off of a loss.”
The Lady Buffs enter the final month of the regular season with a return to the court on Feb. 4 to take on Texas Women’s University at 2 p.m. in Denton.
“It’s going to be a big challenge [going into the final month of the season], especially against Tarleton who’s undefeated and Midwestern who’s only lost one game,” Guard Aly Sherman said. “But I feel like this [win] is helping build confidence and we have to take it one game at a time.”
