ENMU women drop finale

PORTALES — Eastern New Mexico came into Saturday's regular-season finale hoping for a coronation. Instead, they got a power outage.

Tee Moore scored 15 to lead four Javelinas in double figures, and Texas A&M-Kingsville dominated down the stretch for an 85-71 victory to close out the Lone Star Conference regular season at Greyhound Arena.

Meesha Wade scored 14, while Angelica Wilson and Kaylin Rohrer had 13 each for the Javelinas (13-13, 8-12 LSC), who will enter the LSC tournament as the eighth seed and play the very same Greyhounds in a 5 p.m. (MST) Thursday quarterfinal in Allen, Texas.

The Greyhounds, who finished 2-for-20 down the stretch and went 9-of-38 from long range, had already clinched the conference's top seed last week. They will have a public send-off ceremony 2 p.m. today at the lobby of Greyhound Arena.

"We're proud of the girls for their accomplishments," ENMU coach Josh Prock said. "We've played well enough to get to this point; next week we've got to go and get the job done."

The ballgame was a story of the Javelinas driving to the basket and ENMU (20-7, 16-4) settling for 3-pointers, and it became more pronounced as the Javelinas pulled away with a 10-0 run in the final five minutes.

Kingsville coach Wade Scott credited Moore, Wade and Rohrer for being aggressive to help the team establish a 38-24 advantage in the paint.

"They did a good job of driving, then dropping it off inside," Wade said. "This is a tough place to shoot, with the contrasting wall in the first half and that open space in the second half. I felt like if we started settling for 3-pointers, we were going to be in trouble."

Kingsville finished 26-of-50 from the field, while only one player shot .500 for the Greyhounds in a 22-of-72 effort. Jasmine Hotchkins led Eastern with 16 points on 5-of-17 shooting, including 5-of-14 from 3-point range. The 38 3-point attempts were a school record.

Prock, however, felt the team should have been able to survive a poor shooting afternoon.

"Our defense let us down," Prock said. "We didn't give enough effort. It's a frustrating loss, but we have to pick our heads back up."

The teams both exceeded preseason LSC expectations, with ENMU picked eighth and Kingsville picked 11. The Javelinas would have had a chance at the seventh seed Saturday, but instead were upset by Western New Mexico.

Scott coincidentally graduated from ENMU in 1993, the same year the then-Zias won their last LSC regular season title. It was a nice Saturday for him, but he realizes it's right back to work.

"It's been a long road from there," Scott said, "but southeastern New Mexico is my home. I grew up in Roswell, played at Goddard and won a state championship (in 1988). My high school coach was here today, as well.

"It feels good, but it has to be tempered. We see the same team again, and they'll be ready for us."