Feb. 23, 2009

Final Stats

Texas A&M International University secured a spot in the upcoming Heartland Conference postseason tournament with an 81-67 win over St. Mary's on Monday night at the TAMIU Kinesiology & Convocation Building.

The win moved the Dustdevils into third place in the conference standings with an 8-4 league record, one full game ahead of fourth place St. Edward's. The Dustdevils will now close-out the regular season with road games at Oklahoma Panhandle State on Thursday and UT-Permian Basin on Saturday. One win in those two games will lock down the third seed in the conference tournament.

TAMIU (11-14 overall) led 32-18 at the 2:57 mark of the first half before St. Mary's (21-4, 10-2) rallied to cut the halftime deficit to 32-24. The Rattlers kept coming, tying the score 46-46 at the 11:01 mark of the second half. A determined Dustdevil team would not give up the lead, however, to the 20th ranked team in the nation.

Krystal Manning scored 22 of her team-high 27 points in the second half and played a huge part in the win with an outstanding overall performance. She made a great steal and was fouled on a layup attempt at the 3:20 mark of the second half. The ensuing two free throws pushed TAMIU to a 64-56 lead. The Rattlers would get no closer than five points the rest of the game.

St. Mary's started fouling after cutting the lead to 67-62 at the 1:31 mark but TAMIU secured the win by making 14 of 14 free throw attempts in the final 90 seconds.

Manning also contributed a team-high seven rebounds and five assists. Mary Tobias finished with 23 points and five assists and Valerie Villanueva with 15 points.