Box Score DENTON – Despite a valiant second-half effort, Tarleton couldn't overcome a poor shooting night from all three areas of the floor as the No. 19 TexAnns fell on the road to Texas Woman's 64-59.
This game, which was scheduled for Sunday afternoon, is the second of three games over a five-game span for the TexAnns and their second trip to Kitty Magee Arena this season. They went 2-0 in tournament play earlier this year.
Texas Woman's led from the get-go but Tarleton battled to keep it as close a five-point game, pulling within one at 14-15 at 11:26 in the opening half.
The Pioneers pulled away, however, with a 15-0 run over the next 4:31 to lead 30-14. Over that stretch Tarleton was 0-5 from the field, 0-1 from downtown and committed five turnovers.
Kathy Thomas ended the scoreless drought with a layup at 5:56 to start a 9-2 Tarleton push to cut the deficit to single digits at 32-23 with 2:11 left in the opening half. TWU outscored Tarleton 5-1 over the rest of the first half, however, to take a 37-24 lead into the break.
In the first half, Tarleton shot 37 percent from the floor on 10-27 shooting, 25 percent from downtown on 1-4 shooting and 43 percent from the free throw line on 3-7 shooting. The TexAnns were also outrebounded 17-16 and outscored in the paint 20-16 over the first 20 minutes.
Out of the break, Texas Woman's pushed its lead to as many as 18 before Tarleton struck for a 13-4 run to bring it back to a single-digit deficit at 52-43 with 7:54 left in the game.
Tarleton kept it as close as eight with four minutes left to go before making one final run.
Trailing 59-50 with 3:44 left,
Brianna Bledsoe and
Meagan O'Dell connected on a layup and a 3-pointer on back-to-back offensive possessions to force a Texas Woman's timeout and bring Tarleton within four at 55-59 with 2:55 left.
After the teams traded buckets, Texas Woman's failed to convert its offensive possession and Thomas found Wright on the other end for a layup to bring Tarleton within a bucket at 61-59 with less than 20 seconds to go.
Up by two, Texas Woman's went 1-2 at the free throw line but Tarleton could not score any more as Texas Woman's held on for the win. Tarleton never held a lead or tied the score.
Tarleton shot 32 percent from the field in the second half, including 18 percent from downtown.
Wright led the TexAnns with 17 points and 13 rebounds for her 50
th career double-double while Bledsoe also had a double-double, the second of her career, with 12 points and 12 rebounds.
Shanae Lowrance was the only other TexAnn in double figures with 10 points and seven boards.
O'Dell added eight points off the bench and Thomas scored seven while
Karli Moore (3) and
Raven McGrath (2) rounded out the scoring for Tarleton.
For the whole game, Tarleton was 34 percent shooting from the field, 20 percent from downtown and 63 percent at the charity stripe. The TexAnns did bounce back to win the battle down low, winning the rebounding battle 43-33 and the points in the paint 32-26.
Tarleton has a day off before finishing this three games in five days stretch Wednesday night when the TexAnns host Midwestern State at 5 p.m. in Wisdom Gym.
