Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Game against struggling Northern New Mexico on deck for Saturday
Eastern New Mexico junior wing Tilasha Okey drives the lane against Midwestern State junior Courtney Kerr in the first half of Thursday's Lone Star Conference opener. The Greyhounds don't face an LSC team again until January, but do host Northern New Mexico Saturday.
PORTALES — The Eastern New Mexico women’s basketball team is off to its best start in 13 seasons, and everything seems to be clicking.
By all indications, nothing should change this weekend.
The Greyhounds, 6-1 on the season and 2-0 in the Lone Star Conference, are off until Saturday. When they return, they’ll treat the Greyhound faithful to a 2 p.m. home game against Northern New Mexico.
On paper, the game looks like a massive mismatch. The Eagles (10-1) entered their Tuesday night home game against Wayland Baptist on a 10-game losing streak since defeating University of the Southwest to open the season.
All but one of those losses are by double digits — the lone exception Southwest winning a 76-73 rematch — and five of them are by at least 40.
The Greyhounds, meanwhile, are coming off an 85-65 win over Cameron — their biggest win margin over the Aggies since 1999. Their lopsided wins over Cameron and Midwestern State allowed them to move up one spot in the South Central Regional poll, where they sit in seventh.
The Sports Information Directors of America sponsors the poll, with votes from six sports information directors in the region — which includes the Lone Star, Heartland and Rocky Mountain Athletic conferences.
The Greyhounds will certainly have a chance to move up in the ranking, with games this season against six other schools in the poll.
The Lone Star Conference has four of the poll’s 10 teams, with West Texas A&M (8-0) taking all six first-place votes. Angelo State is second with 49 points, Tarleton State is fifth at 38 points and the Greyhounds are sitting in seventh at 23 points.
Eastern also has games later this year against Lubbock Christian, ranked fourth, and No. 10 Oklahoma Christian.
The Greyhounds are led on offense by Treyanna Clay. The 6-foot-1 senior transfer from Division-I Iona is ENMU’s only double-figure scorer at 10.8 points per game and has scored 31 points in her last two contests.
Sophomore Alivia Lewis is averaging 7.3 points and 10.2 rebounds a game, and has led the team in rebounds all six games.
