LAREDO, Texas (December 17, 2015) -- TAMIU opened Heartland Conference play for the 2015-16 season with a 55-75 loss to #12 Lubbock Christian on Thursday. The Dustdevils are now 3-6 (0-1 HC) overall.

With home court being covered in university commencement preparations, the Dustdevils completed Thursday's contest in Laredo's United High School gymnasium. The Dustdevils took the opportunity to honor Nicole Pfister, a 9th grader at United who has leukemia, at the game by wearing specialized orange shirts adorned with #TeamNicole across them. Pfister has been part of the TAMIU Women's Basketball family for the last two seasons, and was presented with her very own "#14" Dustdevils uniform during tonight's contest.

With #TeamNicole on their side, the Dustdevils played a challenging match against the ranked Lady Chaps. LCU took an early lead which they refused to return, despite TAMIU's efforts. The Dustdevils did outscore the Lady Chaps 22-21 in the third quarter, but it was not enough to spark a comeback.

"In games against teams like Lubbock Christian you can't give up runs, and you must be efficient on both ends," commented Head Coach Michelle Bento-Jackson following the loss. "They went on a run in the second quarter that we didn't recover from. The other quarters were relatively close."

Leading the Dustdevils were Senior Guards Jessica Prieto and Keiona Mathews. Prieto and Mathews contributed 24 points each for TAMIU, and combined for 10 rebounds. Bento-Jackson recognized her leaders by saying,"Those two played very well, and were clicking on all cylinders tonight."

Up next, the Dustdevils will continue Heartland Conference play when Oklahoma Panhandle State comes to town on Saturday, December 19th at 1pm. The contest will be back on TAMIU's home court.

Bento-Jackson closed out on these words, "We will watch film and learn from the areas that we need to clean up. In the meantime, we must regroup and put all of our focus on OPSU."

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