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Saturday, December 4, 2010

Lady Buffs Stunned by Visiting Bulldogs

CANYON, Texas – The No. 12 West Texas A&M Lady Buffs were upset by the visiting Southwestern Oklahoma Bulldogs, 78-70, Saturday night at the First United Bank Center in Canyon, Texas.
SWOSU’s Natasha Brown scored 27 points to lead the Bulldogs (6-0), which countered WTAMU’s Jamie Simmons’ (Jr-1L, Houtson, Texas) season-high 25-point effort. The Lady Buffs (3-2) got another 22 points from Megan McLain (Sr-3L, Channing, Texas), a career-high for the senior, but it wasn’t enough and WT fell to the Bulldogs for the first time since Nov. 20, 1997, which snapped a 12-game winning streak over SWOSU.

The Lady Buffs opened the contest with a jumper from Megan McLain and Jamie Simmons followed with a layup to put WT on top 4-0. SWOSU put up its first points at 17:34 with a layup from Sumiya Darden, who was fouled on the play. She converted the and-one opportunity and then on the Bulldogs’ next possession, Natasha Brown but SWOSU on top 5-4 with her layup at the 16:55 mark.

McLain made both free throw attempts after a foul was called with 16:29 remaining, which led to a 10-2 run over the next three plus minutes and the Lady Buffs led 14-7 with 13:32 left in the half. The Lady Buffs then pushed their lead to 20-12 with a layup from Simmons at 11:45, but SWOSU countered with a pair of baskets on the other end of the court to pull within four points, down 20-16.

Callie Schniederjan (So-1L, Dalhart, Texas) pushed WT’s lead back to seven points with her basket from downtown, but SWOSU’s Shanessa Smith countered with a three of her own with 7:10 left to play to make it a 23-19 game.

WT led 26-24 with 2:45 remaining in the half, but SWOSU’s Smith had a wide open lane and her layup tied the game at 26-26. The Bulldogs then took back the lead with 2:16 left on the clock on a free throw from Alex Foster and SWOSU closed out the first half on a 7-4 run to take a 34-29 lead into the break.

WT was held to just 40.7 percent shooting from the field in the first half, while the Bulldogs shot 46.2 percent, which included going 3-for-9 from beyond the arc. The Lady Buffs made just one three-pointer on six attempts.

The Bulldogs hit a three-pointer right out of the locker room to open the second half, but the Lady Buffs got a layup from Simmons and a three-pointer from Aly Sherman (Jr-1l, Mt. Vernon, Texas) to pull WT within three points, down 37-34. SWOSU then proceed to go on a 7-0 run which ended with a three-pointer from Brown at the 16:19 mark to give the Bulldogs a 10-point lead, up 44-34.

The Lady Buffs then got a layup from Simmons with 16:01 left to play and then ended a 10-0 run with a layup from McLain at 14:10 to tie the contest 44-44. It looked as if SWOSU would take a time out, but instead Smith put in a layup and SWOSU countered with its own 13-2 run. Brown scored nine of the 13 points, including the last six and her layup with 10:31 left pushed SWOSU’s lead up to 12-points, 58-46.

The Lady Buffs countered with a layup from Ashley Leven (Jr-2L, Amarillo, Texas) and a three-pointer from Brittany Williams (So-1L, Sudan, Texas) to pull back within seven, but Brown hit another three-pointer at the other end of the court to put the Bulldogs back on top by 10-points, 61-51 with a little over eight minutes left in the game.

Both teams then traded buckets over the next two and a half minutes and with 5:35 left to play, head coach Krista Gerlich was called for a technical foul following a controversial turnover call, which went the Bulldogs’ way. Saraya Olyer converted both free throws following the technical foul and SWOSU led 65-55.

WT outscored the Bulldogs 7-4 over the next three minutes and trailed 70-62 with just over a 1:30 left to play. Simmons went to the line and made one of two and Brown was fouled on the other end as she made one of two as well to make it a 71-63 game. McLain then poured in layup to pull within six points and WT was forced to foul throughout the remainder of the game.

The Bulldogs made seven of its final 10 free throw attempts and WT pulled back to within five points with 36 seconds remaining, but the Lady Buffs were then called for a turnover and never recovered allowing SWOSU to take the contest 78-70.

Despite shooting just over 40 percent in the first half, WT finished the game shooting 47.3 percent after converting 53.6 percent of their shots from the field in the second period. SWOSU finished shooting 51.0 percent, which included going 8-for-17 (47.1%) from beyond the arc.

Simmons had nine rebounds on the night to lead the Lady Buffs on the board, while SWOSU was led on the boards by Darden who finished with seven rebounds. Sherman led the Lady Buffs with seven assists on the night as WT dished out 17 total assists as a team.

For the first time all season, the Lady Buffs were outscored on the bench as SWOSU scored 21 points off the bench compared with WT’s 12.

The Lady Buffs return to Lone Star Conference crossover action next week with a road game at Texas Woman’s next Thursday, Dec. 9. Tip-off is set for 7 p.m. inside Kitty Magee Arena in Denton, Texas.

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