Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
KINGSVILLE, Texas — Eastern New Mexico up by 10 early in the fourth, and nine minutes away from the Lone Star Conference's third seed.
Texas A&M-Kingsville eliminated from LSC tournament consideration for a week, less than 300 fans in the building and a feeling it would be understood if not commended if the Javelinas packed it in for 2017-18.
Not so fast. The Greyhounds went 3-of-17 shooting the rest of regulation and overtime, and the Javelinas sent the crowd home happy and surprised with a 69-62 victory Saturday at Hampton Inn Court.
Brynae Thompson scored 17 points to lead four in double figures for Kingsville (8-20, 5-15), while Angelica Wilson posted a huge double-double with 15 points and 17 boards.
The Greyhounds (16-11, 12-8) entered Saturday knowing they'd finish anywhere between third and fifth depending on what they, Texas A&M-Commerce and Tarleton State did. All three ended up losing, and that put Eastern into the fourth seed and a matchup with Tarleton.
The seed doesn't matter much because they would have played each other 5 p.m. (MST) Thursday at Dr Pepper Arena in Frisco, Texas, no matter who's fourth and who's fifth. But Eastern did technically get the higher seed based on their regular-season sweep of the TexAnns.
Daeshi McCants led the charge for Eastern, scoring 23 points on 8-of-18 shooting and pulling down 10 boards, while Brandi Gomez added 10. But no Greyhound outside of Amari Joseph (nine points) added more than five on a rough day for the starting five.
Outside of McCants, the four Eastern starters — Sarina and Dasia Johnson, Shelby Jones and Mikhaela Connor — combined for 12 points on 4-of-21 shooting and eight rebounds.
The Greyhounds seemed to have things wrapped up after a Gomez 3-pointer with 8:52 to play, but they shot just 1-of-10 for the rest of regulation as Wilson and Antoinette Shrepee helped the Javelinas mount a comeback. Wilson hit four free throws, while Shrepee scored the last two field goals of regulation in a 3:48 stretch.
The Greyhounds took a pair of leads in the extra session — on a McCants 3-pointer with 3:27 left and a Connor layup with 1:45 to go — but the Javelinas went 8-for-8 down the line over the final 83 seconds.
