Women's Basketball 3/2/2013 11:16:00 PM

Dustdevils Season Ends in Heartbreaking Fashion

Box Score LAREDO (March 2) – A 69-67 loss to St. Mary’s University Saturday afternoon ended the playoff hopes of the TAMIU women’s basketball team, but also served to show the remarkable progress made throught the year.

The Rattlers overpowered the Dustdevils in their first meeting of the year back in December, leading by as many as 17 points before coming away with a 73-67 win. This time around TAMIU gave St. Mary’s everything they could handle in front of their largest crowd of the season on senior day.

St. Mary’s came into the game with the league’s second best record at 9-2, while the Dustdevils were one game below .500 at 5-6. A win would’ve locked TAMIU in a three way tie for third place in the conference standings and guaranteed the Dustdevils at least a play in game leading up to next week’s conference tournament.

The Dustdevils trailed by as many as seven in the opening half, but rallied to take a 31-30 lead at the break.

TAMIU trailed 64-62 with 2:31 remaining, but Samantha Chacon hit Kim Brown on a back door cut for a layup to tie the game at 64. Malika Jackson, who finished with 18 points, then converted a huge three-point play with 39 seconds remaining to put the Dustdevils up 67-64.

On the other end Jackie Woods, who led the Rattlers with 19 points and eight assists, answered with a three-point play of her own to tie the game at 67 with 35 seconds to play. Following a 30-second timeout TAMIU looked to set up the game winning shot, but with seven seconds remaining Brown was stripped of the ball at the top of the key and Chacon was forced to foul Felicia Jacobs to save a game winning layup. After Jacobs knocked down both free throws to give St. Mary’s a 69-67 lead, Jackson had one final look from just past half court but the shot came up short as the buzzer sounded.

The loss drops TAMIU’s conference record to 5-7 on the season, one game back of St. Edward’s and Newman University who will enter the tournament as the no. 3 and 4 seeds with 6-6 records.

Tina Dang and Jackson combined to score 41 points for TAMIU, but the Dustdevils turned the ball over 20 times resulting in 22 points for St. Mary’s. Dang scored a game-high 23 points on 8-of-15 shooting including six three pointers. Jackson tallied her team-leading seventh double-double of the season grabbing a game-high 20 boards to go along with 18 points. Brown surged in the second half scoring all eight of her points in the final frame going 4-for-4 from the field. The Dustdevils shot their second highest field goal percentage of the year at 51 percent (25-of-49) and their second highest free throw percentage of the season at 83.3 percent (10-of-12).

Three additional players scored in double figures for St. Mary’s. Morgan Pullins finished with 16 points and five rebounds, Mariah Lee had 13 points and nine rebounds, and Felicia Jacobs had 12 points, 5 steals, and four assists.

TAMIU finishes the season with an overall record of 10-16.

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