Women Lose to WT, 75-45

January 3, 2009

CANYON, Texas - Southwestern Oklahoma State found some success but not enough to overcome West Texas A&M losing 75-45 in a women's basketball game Saturday in Canyon, Texas.

The Bulldogs had their hands full with the nation's fourth-ranked NCAA Division II  team and could not overcome a slow start that doomed them from the beginning. The loss dropped SWOSU to 3-7 on the year while the Lady Buffs improved to 10-2 on the season.

SWOSU will next play Monday at Portales, N.M. against Eastern New Mexico University before returning home Thursday for a matchup against Tarleton State University. The game against Tarleton has a special matinee start with the women set to tipoff at 2 p.m. and the men to follow at 4 p.m.

Lucy Ramon had 14 points and Jenna Sprague added 12 for the Bulldogs who played considerably better in the second half after being limited to just 17 points in the opening 20 minutes by the Buffs.

SWOSU went scoreless for the game's first four minutes before Sprague broke the ice with a basket inside. By that time, WTAM had already put 11 points on the board and were beginning to hit stride.

The Buffs slowly pulled away and managed to take a 37-17 lead into the locker room. The margin stayed around the 20-point mark before WTAM went on a 14-4 run and were by a 64-33 count with 8:37 to play.

The Bulldogs made 45% of their shots in the second half and bettered their point output by 10 points. Still, though SWOSU was never able to find its mark from outside making just one-of-14 three-point attempts.

A bright spot that did emerge for the Bulldogs was the return of guard Kadee Carter who had missed the eight games because of a hand injury. Carter led the team in assists with four despite playing just one half of the game.

Emily Brister, the three-time LSC player-of-the-year, led all scorers with 15 points for the Buffs.