Box Score KINGSVILLE – The Tarleton winning streak has moved to nine in a row as the No. 15 TexAnns (12-1, 3-0) cruised past Texas A&M-Kingsville 80-61 in an afternoon battle at the Steinke Center Saturday.
 
On Ronnie Hearne's birthday, the TexAnns gave the 11^th year head coach his third longest winning streak at Tarleton, his 202^nd all-time victory at the helm of the TexAnns and his fourth career birthday victory. Hearne is now 4-1 on January 11.
 
Tarleton opened the game with six straight points, beginning at the 19:02 mark with a Shanae Lowrance layup off a pass from Brianna Bledsoe. Kathy Thomas and Kiara Wright followed suit with buckets of their own to complete the opening run.
 
Despite small pushes from the Javelinas, Tarleton stayed in complete control over the first 15 minutes of the game – extending their lead to as many as nine and to 29-21 before Kingsville made things interesting in the waning minutes of the opening half.
 
Bledsoe scored her sixth point of the afternoon at 4:38 to give Tarleton that 29-21 advantage but Kingsville answered right back with a jumper to start a 6-0 run of their own to pull within two points at 29-27 with 3:17 left.
 
Neither team scored again until the 43-second mark and over that stretch, Tarleton committed five turnovers before Karli Moore and Thomas tacked on five unanswered points to end the half and send Tarleton into the break with a 34-27 lead.
 
Tarleton shot 47 percent from the field in the opening half but struggled from beyond the arc and the free throw line, shooting just 22 percent from downtown on 2-9 shooting and 40 percent from the charity stripe on 2-5 shooting.
 
The TexAnns came out firing on all cylinders in the second half, opening the new period on a 12-2 run starting with a Lowrance hook shot in the paint and ending with a 3-ball from Thomas that forced a Kingsville timeout at 16:23.
 
Tarleton kept its foot on the gas pedal the rest of the second half and pushed the lead to as many as 28 with a 73-45 lead en route to the win.
 
Five players reached double figures in the scoring department, including four of the five starters. Kiara Wright led the team with 17 points while Kathy Thomas, fresh off a career-high 20-point outing Wednesday, poured in 16.
 
Brianna Bledsoe scored 11 while Shanae Lowrance continued her success against the Javelinas with 10 points. She has scored double figured in all four of her career games against the Javelinas.
 
Karli Moore added 10 points off the bench while Raven McGrath (6), Morgan Ashmore (6), Keyra Johnson (2) and Erin Sims (2) rounded out the scoring for the TexAnns.
 
As a team, Tarleton finished the game shooting 52 percent from the floor, 33 percent from downtown on 7-21 shooting and 33 percent from the charity stripe on 3-9 shooting. The TexAnns dominated the paint with a 48-12 scoring advantage and 48-35 rebounding advantage.
 
Lowrance and Wright both missed double-doubles with nine rebounds each while Bledsoe and Thomas were only triple-double alerts. Thomas added five rebounds and five assists to her 16 points while Bledsoe had six rebound and a career-high seven assists to go along with her 11 points.
 
With her nine rebounds, Wright is now at 998 for her Tarleton career – bringing her two rebounds shy of becoming the third player in school history, and the first in Tarleton's NCAA history, to score 1,000 career points and grab 1,000 career rebounds.
 
Wright will look to make Tarleton history Wednesday night as she and the TexAnns head to Wichita Falls for a 5:30 p.m. match-up against Midwestern State at D.L. Ligon Coliseum.