The Lady Buffs’ regular season went down to the wire this weekend as they traveled to Lawton, Okla. for a game against Cameron State on Saturday.
WTAMU wouldn’t make watching the game easy for fans as they trailed by 16-points with less than six minutes left in the first half. However, the team would show that they still wanted the win, going on a run late in the half to close out the break trailing by eight with a score of 34-26 on the board.
The second half opened like many of WT’s games this year with the teams trading baskets. CSU pulled off a 45-37 lead with 14:25 left in the game. The Lady Buffs went on a 6-2 run a little under half way through the half to pull within four points of the Aggies. The Lady Buffs would briefly grab their first lead with 5:22 left to play but CSU would take it back 12 seconds later.WT would again take back the lead with 3:25 left in the game, only allowing the Aggies to have one more lead before scoring eight of the last 13 points. CSU had the final shot with 19 seconds on the clock but their three-point attempt went wide, allowing the Lady Buffs to win 68-65.
Devin Griffin was a major player in Saturday’s game, scoring 27 points, a career high for the sophomore. Griffin also had a team-high seven rebounds while senior Joni Unruh had six rebounds and one steal. The Lady Buffs’ win was their ninth in a row, with their last loss coming on Jan. 21 against Eastern New Mexico University.
“I thought [the win] was amazing,” Head coach Krista Gerlich said. “I thought it was a hard fought win. We really had to show some guts and it was just really fun to see our kids dig deep and to know that they could come back from a deficient like that.”
The end result of the regular season has WT picking up the second spot in the Lone Star Conference after Tarleton State’s win last night to win the conference. The Lady Buffs had an overall record of 18-8 for a 69 percent winning rate with a conference record of 16-4 to win at 80 percent.
“I think that it has been a season of growth and maturity and kind of exactly how you want a young team to come around,” Gerlich said. “You want your seniors to lead them and to continually teach and show them how to fight and work hard and not be down on themselves and to come back from adversity. I think our kids have matured and are playing some of their best basketball right now.”
The team travels to Allen, Texas next for the LSC Championship Tournament where they will play their first game at 2:30 p.m. on March 1 against No. 7 seed Texas Woman’s University.
