After about 30 minutes of playing neck-and-neck basketball, the Texas A&M University-Commerce women’s basketball team decided to take all drama out of its first-round Lone Star Conference game against Cameron. Trailing by a basket with about 10 minutes to play, the Lions went on a 20-2 run that led to an 80-65 upset victory over the Aggies.
The Lions (14-13) will tip off against Midwestern State (22-5) at noon on Fri., March 5, at the Allen Events Center in Allen.
Cameron (15-11) returns to Lawton, Okla., with its chances for the NCAA Division II Tournament very much in doubt. The Aggies entered Thursday’s game ranked sixth in the NCAA South Central Region, but a first-round loss in the conference tournament puts Cameron on the bubble for the national tournament, which takes the top eight teams from each region.
“I don’t know what to say … these girls … we struggled in February, we did,” head coach Jason Burton said. “It was a rough month. But we reminded the girls of who we are. We’ve overcome odds all year.”
Not only were the Lions were facing a favored opponent, but they were doing so without the team’s best player. Senior guard Ashlee Johnson, the Lone Star Conference Defensive Player of the Year, did not play against Cameron and is expected to miss the remainder of the postseason due to injury.
“We’ve played shorthanded all year, and other people stepped up, and to have people step up the way they did – (La’Tisha Hearne) came back,” Burton said. “This is Tish’s best game in a long time.”
Hearne, a senior forward, led all players with 12 rebounds and chipped in eight points. Freshman guard Princess Davis led Lions scorers with 23 points while totaling nine assists. Freshman forward Artaejah Gay had 18 points, while junior guard Gabby Scott scored 11 and senior forward Abigail Leaupepe-Tele had 10 points and nine rebounds. During the 20-2 run, five different players scored for the Lions, including three baskets by Leaupepe-Tele.
The Aggies entered the game seeded third in the LSC, while the Lions were seeded sixth. For Cameron, Jazzmine Robinson scored 29 points and had eight rebounds but was 9-of-30 from the field. Charro Montgomery came off the bench to score 11. Other than their four losses to the top two seeds – West Texas A&M and Midwestern State, the Aggies were 12-0 against the rest of the conference before Thursday’s loss.
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