The University of the Southwest Mustangs Women's Basketball Program (4-10; 1-6 conference) dropped a conference contest against #14 Our Lady of the Lake Saints (14-4; 7-0 conference) on Saturday afternoon by the score of 95-70.
The contest comes one week after the Lady Mustangs upset the #25 LSU-Alexandria Generals at 'The Dox' by the score of 81-67, securing Coach
Cory Hitchcock his first RRAC victory of his career here at USW.
The Lady Mustangs kept it close in the first half, but ultimately could not keep up with the Saints offense in the last 20 minutes of the game. " I thought the girls did a great job in the first half. I think we got away from the game plan there in the 3
rdquarter; we tried to get in a track meet with them and if we tried to run up and down with them, they would beat us in that phase of the game. We had to run our offense and slow down the game a little bit to give us a chance, which we did in the 1
st half and we got away from that in the 3
rdquarter. Thought we did a better job of that in the 4
thquarter, but we got outscored by 16 points in the 3
rdquarter and that's the difference right there." Coach Hitchcock had to say following the game.
The Lady Mustangs were lead in the scoring department by Senior guard
Desiree Garza (21 points, 3 assists & 3 rebounds) and Junior forward
Mykal Thomas (15 points & 6 rebounds). The story of the game however was the potent Saints offense that outscored the Mustangs in each of the 1
stthree quarters, with the 3
rdquarter being a 13 point differential. However the Lady Mustangs kept up with the Saints in the first half outshooting them 56.7% (17/30) compared to 51.4% (18/35). USW also won the rebound battle by grabbing 42 boards compared to only 37 for the Saints.
"I think you can learn something from every game. I told the girls in the locker room that we can compete with any team. We competed with Our Lady for the first half, but had some mental breakdowns that cost us that 3
rdquarter. If we can put four quarters together we will be in good shape. We know we are going to make mistakes, it's about not making the same mistakes over and over." Hitchcock said of his teams ability to stay in games down the stretch.
"We're in good shape, we're okay; we aren't even through the 1
st half of the conference schedule and we've been in every game so far. We blew the second half of the St. Thomas & OLLU game, but I am proud of the girls. We are getting better everyday and working hard, we just gotta get back in the gym on Monday and be ready to go next week." Coach Hitchcock said of the effort from his girls and how proud he is of them.
The Lady Mustangs travel to Hawkins, TX on Thursday to take on the Jarvis Christian College Bulldogs at 5:30 central then finish the road trip by driving over to Marshall, TX on Saturday to take on the Wiley College Wildcats.
