The USW Women's Basketball program took to the road to face off with Huston-Tillotson & St. Thomas over the weekend. The Lady Mustangs dropped both matchups, but made both games close until the very end. The losses drop the Lady Mustangs record now to 6-14 overall and 3-10 in conference. 
 
USW vs. Huston-Tillotson
 
The girls faced off with Huston-Tillotson on Thursday night and dropped the contest by the score of 73-60. The Lady Mustangs had 2 girls in double figures as Mykal Thomas and Julia Norder both scored 14 points. Thomas scored 14 points on 4-12 shooting and 6-6 from the FT line. Thomas also grabbed 5 rebounds in 27 minutes of action. Freshman Julia Norder scored 14 points on 3-7 shooting and 6-8 from the FT line. Norder, a native of Sweden, had 6 rebounds, 2 assists and 1 block. 
 
The Lady Mustangs shot 43.2% for the game (19-44) and held HTU to 36.8% shooting on 25-68 shots. Despite the stingy defense by USW, the Lady Mustangs turned the ball over 32 times compared to only 13 for the Rams. USW entered the 4^th quarter down 23 and exploded for 27 points which was more than their entire 1^st half scoring. 
 
"We started out flat and put ourselves in a hole and we couldn't recover from it. I'm proud of the way the bench played in the second half though. They cut the lead to 7 points, but we ran out of gas" Coach Hitchcock had to say following the loss on Thursday night. 
 
USW vs. St. Thomas 
 
Saturday night, the Lady Mustangs once again had a familiar face as their scoring leader for the game. Mykal Thomas scored 15 points on 6-13 shooting. Thomas also grabbed 5 boards and dished out 1 assist. Tytilayo Green also matched Thomas in the scoring column as she scored 15 points on 6-10 shooting and 3-3 from the FT line. Green did so in 18 minutes of play. Senior Catarina Garcia had a game high 14 assists to go along with 6 points and 1 block. 
 
USW was able to keep it close throughout the game, but was unable to close out down the stretch. The ladies shot 45.9% from the field and 61.5% from beyond the arc. 
 
"The ladies played a great game and really did a good job with execution until the 1-minute mark left in the 4^th quarter. Being down only 2 points with 1:03 left, I expected us to execute and close out the ball game but we didn't. We have to do a better job finishing games and not feeling rushed or panicked in those situations. It's good to see us right there each game but as some point, we need to figure out how to finish. On the positive side, we are still in a good position in the standings and still have a shot to make the conference tournament. We just have to clean up some things on our end". Coach Hitchcock had to say praising the effort of the ladies. 
 
The Lady Mustangs are back on the road again this week as they travel to the 'Pelican State' to take on LSU-Shreveport on Thursday night and then LSU-Alexandria on Saturday night.