Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Daeshi McCants goes up for the floater during the opening quarter of Eastern's 81-56 win over Texas-Permian Basin Saturday afternoon.
PORTALES — In a complete role reversal from its last outing, the Eastern New Mexico women's basketball team found themselves on fire from the floor Saturday afternoon, defeating Texas-Permian Basin, 81-56.
The Greyhounds (15-4, 11-1) shot 46 percent from the floor and 42 percent from beyond the arc, a far cry better than Thursday's matchup with West Texas, where Eastern only managed to hit 26 percent of their shots. Saturday ENMU was led by Brandi Gomez with 15 points, whole Daeshi McCants and Sarina Johnson added 14 and 11, respectively.
Johnson said, "It starts with practice ... My teammates always encourage me to shoot and be aggressive and I appreciate that very much. There is no doubt about it, our team is always ready to compete with anyone who comes in here."
The Falcons (6-12, 3-9) were led by Sierra LaGrande with 15 points. UTPB struggled all night from the floor, hitting only 26 percent of their looks. Eastern dominated the smaller Falcon lineup on the defensive end of the court, recording nine blocks and outrebounding Permian Basin 52-32.
ENMU coach Josh Prock said, "That's what we wanted to get back to, that is our M.O. We knew we could dominate them on the boards and our posts were definitely motivated today, showing the other night was just a one-night deal, coming out and getting nine blocks."
The win was a statement from Eastern, with the team showing that the setback against West Texas was just a bump in the road. In the season's first matchup with the Falcons, UTPB took the Greyhounds to overtime before finally falling 63-61 - a far cry from Saturday's contest.
"I think it shows the improvement this team has made," said Prock. "Since [our first] game against UTPB we have gotten better, we continue to fight and claw. I am proud of them, we are 11-1 now, we just need to keep fighting through this tremendous grind we have ahead of us."
The Greyhounds will hit the road, heading to Tarleton State Thursday at 4:30 p.m. before taking on Texas A&M-Commerce on Saturday.
