STEPHENVILLE – The No. 7 Tarleton State Texans made a statement to the rest of the South Central region Saturday night when Tarleton ran away from the Heartland Conference champion Rattlers in a 71-52 rout in the NCAA regional quarterfinals.
 
"It was a very tough ballgame and we have a lot of respect for St. Mary's. We knew they were Heartland Conference champions; they were playing very well, coming in here winning seven in a row, said head coach Lonn Reisman. "They're a lot like us. They play hard, they execute well and play great defense."
 
"I thought our guys really came out tonight and really played hard and executed our game plan defensively and really did some great things offensively," he continued. "It's very stressful, everybody loves to play at home in this thing, but there's a lot of stress to play at home in this because the expectations are so much when you play at home and have a full gym out there. The expectation is you're supposed to win and you can feel the stress a little bit. I think getting this first game through and having the opportunity to win this first game is a great feeling for us and our staff and our players."
 
Tarleton's 19-point blowout of the Rattlers was far-and-away the largest margin of defeat in any of Saturday's four quarterfinal contests, which saw Angelo State, Midwestern State and Colorado-Colorado Springs advance to join Tarleton in the semifinal round.
 
It took two minutes for Tarleton to get on the board when Mo Lee drilled a jumper for the first bucket of the game. St. Mary's answered with three unanswered points to take its only lead of the game at 3-2.
 
Davene Carter, who topped the 20-point mark for the first time in the 2015 calendar year, turned the lead back over to Tarleton with a hook-shot jumper that was the first of eighth unanswered points to put the Texans up by seven with 14:27 left in the opening half. The Rattlers would answer, however, to pull within three over the next nine minutes.
 
Carter hit a free throw and a layup before Damion Clemons capped off a 6-0 surge with a 3-ball off a dish from Lee to extend the lead back to nine with 3:28 left in the first half. The Texans took their nine-point lead into halftime at 30-21.
 
Out of the break, it was Carter back to work as the senior from Duncanville opened the new half with an alley-oop slam off a dish from Michael Hardge to start a half-opening run of seven straight points that extended the Texan lead to 16 over the first three minutes of the new half.
 
St. Mary's pulled the game as close 14 but the Texans took their first 20-point advantage with 14:53 left in the game and cruised to victory – leading between 16 and 24 points over the rest of the game en route to the NCAA Round of 32.
 
This marks the second consecutive season that the Texans have advanced to the second round of the NCAA regional tournament and, when they tip-off against Colorado-Colorado Springs, will be the second time they have met a Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference school in the NCAA playoffs.
 
Carter led all scorers with 21 points on 10-11 shooting from the floor while Lee scored 15 and Hardge and Malcolm Hamilton also cracked double figures with 12 points each. Clemons added eight off the bench while EJ Reed rounded out the scoring with three points.
 
Tarleton shot 55 percent from the floor while holding the Rattlers to 37 percent from the floor, including 21 percent from beyond the arc. The Texans forced 17 turnovers, which led to 20 points off turnovers for Tarleton.
 
The Texans will square off with the RMAC Tournament Champions Colorado-Springs Sunday night at 7:30 p.m. in Wisdom Gym for the first-ever meeting between the Texans and Mountain Lions.