March 13, 2008

KATY, Texas - The third time proved to be a charm as No. 4 seed Lamar University women's basketball team picked up a 60-48 win over No. 5 seed Stephen F. Austin the opening round of the Southland Conference Tournament at the Merrell Center in Katy Texas Wednesday night.

Lamar, who had come up short the last two years in the SLC tournament against SFA in the opening round of the tournament, found the winning combination to defeat the Ladyjacks. The win is the first post season victory for the LU program since the 1995-96 team defeated South Alabama 70-65 in the opening round of the Sun Belt Conference Tournament. The Lady Cardinals improve to 18-12 on the year with the win, while SFA ends the year at 12-17.

Both teams struggled to find their offense early in the game, but after Lamar started out on a 7-2 run they never looked back. The Lady Cards stretched their lead to double digits at 8:00 mark of the first half at 18-7 on a Tamara Abalde three pointer.

With their strong defensive effort and workmanlike offense play over the first 20 minutes the Lady Cards took an 11-point lead into the locker room. Abalde led the way for LU in the first half, scoring 12 points on three of six shooting while going 5-5 from the free throw line.

In the second half Lamar continued to roll on the offensive end of the floor, while their defense continued to stymie the Ladyjacks. The Lady Cards only allowed SFA to get within single digits on one occasion, when Natashia Green sank a jumper to close the score to 38-30 and cap off their 5-0 run.

The Lady Cards responded the Ladyjacks offense outburst with a 7-0 run of their own to build their lead back up to 15 points and ran it up to 17 points with 4:57 to play on a Trashanna Smith jumper in the paint.

Sophomore forward Brittney Williams led the way for the Lady Cardinals with 18 points while junior Nikki Williams registered her first career double-double as the 5-5 guard scored 16 points and grabbed a game-high 14 rebounds. Abalde finished the game with 16 points and Smith posted career-highs with 13 rebounds and six blocks.

As a team the Lady Cards dominated SFA on the glass by 30 rebounds, pulling down a season-high 57 boards while the Ladyjacks grabbed just 27. Lamar shot 34.7 percent from the field for the game, knocking down 17 of 49 field goals while Stephen F. Austin sank 18 of 63 for 28.6 percent. Lamar also won the free throw battle, sinking 23 of 28 from the charity stripe, while the Ladyjacks went 6-11.

The Lady Cardinals will be back in action on Friday at 2:30 p.m. at the Merrell Center when they take on No. 8 seed Texas A&M-Corpus Christi who stunned No. 1 seed Texas State 106-88.