Lady Aggies forced to play waiting game
BOXSCORE»
COMMERCE, Texas (Feb. 22) - Hurry up and wait. That's all the Lady Aggies can do now.
Playing its third game in five days on Wednesday, the Cameron women's basketball team dropped a 69-56 decision at Texas A&M-Commerce. The good news, however, was that the Lady Aggies remained a half-game ahead of East Central for the last Lone Star Conference North Division playoff spot by way of ECU's 39-30 loss at Northeastern State.
East Central will play its final regular-season game on Saturday, hosting Central Oklahoma. An ECU win, coupled with a Southeastern Oklahoma loss at home to Northeastern State on Saturday, and the Lady Tigers earn a trip to the conference tournament next Tuesday. A UCO win over the Lady Tigers, or an NSU victory, would send the Lady Aggies back to the LSC tourney for the first time since 2004.
Shantel Whitaker came off the bench for the Lady Aggies to lead all scorers with 21 points on Wednesday, finishing 10-of-15 from the field. Joneatta Brown added 11 points and four blocked shots. But senior Brittany Cooksey's string of nine consecutive games in double-figure scoring ended with a 2-of-10 shooting effort, including 0-for-5 from three-point range. Cooksey finished with six points and five turnovers and fouled out with just over a minute remaining in the game.
Cameron committed 27 turnovers as a team Wednesday, marking the highest number of miscues for the squad since a win over Midwestern State on Nov. 22. The Lady Aggies won the rebounding battle 42-38 and posted a higher shooting percentage than the Lions, but connected on just 2 of 14 attempts from behind the arc and got to the free throw line just 10 times, converting six.
Texas A&M-Commerce, which finished 12-of-18 from the line and 7-of-14 from three-point range, got 20 points from Kanani Marshal and 15 from Dawn Montgomery.
Cameron led just twice in the contest. Linda Brown's layup put the Lady Aggies up 7-6 with 16:22 left in the opening period and Cooksey's jumper less than a minute later gave CU a 9-8 advantage. But after Montgomery's jumper at the 14:57 mark in the first half gave the Lions a 10-9 lead, A&M-Commerce never trailed. Coach Denny Downing's squad stretched the lead to 11 midway through the half and fought off a 6-0 Cameron run that cut it to five before ending the period with a 12-point cushion.
A&M-Commerce led by 10 midway through the second period before three straight buckets by Tiffany Williams and Whitaker pulled the Lady Aggies within four. Williams' layup at the 8:42 mark made it 45-41 and had the Lady Aggies entertaining thoughts of a comeback.
But the Lions answered back with six straight points of their own to regain command and Marshal later sandwiched a pair of three-pointers around two Cooksey free throws. After Cooksey picked up her fifth foul, Marshal converted one of two charity tosses, giving A&M-C its biggest lead of the game at 67-53 with 1:09 to play.
