GEORGETOWN, Texas – The Southwestern University women's basketball team could not overcome a 44-21 halftime deficit despite outscoring Texas Lutheran University 16-8 in th third quarter before ultimately falling to the Bulldogs by a final score of 68-42.
The loss drops the Pirates to 7-6 overall and 4-1 in the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference (SCAC) while the Bulldogs improved to 8-5 overall and 4-1 in the SCAC.
Southwestern got off to a very, very sluggish start going scoreless for more than 3:30 and trailing 5-0. It wasn't until Emily Edwards' three pointer that was assisted by Jay Hollie with 6:21 left in the first quarter that Southwestern would finally get on the board.
TLU proceeded to go on a 7-0 run to push its lead out to 12-3 before the Pirates would score again with 4:47 on the clock in the first quarter when Akyra Hodges drained a jumper making it 12-5.
After a successful basket-and-one conversion gave the Bulldogs their largest lead of the game to that point at 15-5.
Consecutive baskets by Ellie Ward and Hodges would shorten the gap to six at 15-9, but that would be as close as the Pirates would get the rest of the outing as TLU worked up a run of 15-2 spanning the rest of the first quarter and 2:39 into the second quarter to all but put the game away at that point.
Southwestern did come out of the halftime break with some nice adjustments on defense holding TLU to just eight points in the third quarter on 3-for-15 shooting from the field and 1-for-5 from long range and 1-for-4 from the free throw line, but it was a little too as the Bulldogs would reverse script and dictate a single-digit scoring output (six points) for the Pirates in the fourth quarter.
Southwestern would be plagued by turnovers throughout the game giving up possession 24 times including 16 in the second half when each possession needed to be accounted for when attempting to make a comeback.
Hodges was the lone Pirate to tally double digits in scoring with her 11 points to go along with four rebounds, one assist, one steal and one block.
Despite the loss, Southwestern remains near the top of the SCAC standings and can remain there by correcting the things they know are correctable especially since there are so many SCAC battles to come before the end of the regular season.
The Pirates will make their own long conference trip of the season this weekend albeit for one game as they travel to Colorado Springs, Colo., to take on Colorado College on Friday, Jan. 6 at 6:30 p.m. CST.
