Lady Cardinals Leave Bobcats Broken-Hearted On Valentine’s Day

The Texas State women’s basketball team came into Saturday’s game with a plentiful amount of momentum coming off of a huge road win against A&M – Corpus Christi as well as a two-game win streak, but all of that energy from those two games seemed to be all but dissipated after Lamar came into Strahan Coliseum and torched the Bobcats by a final score of 71-56 on Saturday afternoon.

Texas State got off to a good start early in the first half with the pair of Kim Cessna and Aimee Hilburn eating the Lady Cardinal defenders for lunch down in the paint, but with 11 minutes to go in the first half Lamar retook a 14-13 lead and never looked back.

After Kelsey Krupa hit a jumper to cut the Lady Cardinal lead to 21-19, the Lamar athletes took no prisoners and burned the Bobcats from 3-point land in an 18-6 run that left the Bobcats down by 14 at halftime. Texas State’s players and coaches are going to be looking at game film over the course of next week and will likely be wondering just how Lamar’s Darika Hill got so wide open on the perimeter as she scored 11 points during said run, 9 of those points coming off of three-pointers.

Texas State knew coming into the game that Lamar loved to run ball screens and get their shooting threats open, and were still not able to adjust as 12 of those 18 points during the Lady Cardinal run came from outside the 3-point arc. That run seemed to suck the life out of Strahan Coliseum as well as the Texas State bench, and the Bobcats were never able to completely recover. Despite another frenetic attempt at a comeback by Texas State with a 23-11 run coming out of the locker room to cut the Lady Cardinal lead to 4 the Bobcats were unable to get over the hump.

The Bobcats played some good defense down in the paint while making some tough shots in the lane, and they were also fortunate to watch outside threats Darika Hill and Emily Spickler go cold from the perimeter. But, just as it seemed that Texas State was about to possibly come back once again against the Lady Cardinals and possibly get over the top this time, disaster struck as a metaphorical truckload of fouls unloaded on the Bobcats’ backs and subsequently broke them.

Lamar was able to get to the free throw line a ridiculous 27 times in the second half, making 18 of those attempts. Texas State was only able to get to the charity stripe 6 times in comparison and only made 2 of those attempts. The referees were tough to gauge throughout the game, as you sensed they would call a tight game in the first half, then they let the players play in the first part of the second half, and then you could hardly take a breath without hearing a whistle in the latter part of the game. Such eagerness by the officials to blow their whistles had an obvious effect on the Bobcat offense, as the players seemed a bit out of sorts and weren’t able to really get any flow or momentum on their side after their run earlier in the half.

However, head coach Suzanne Fox wouldn’t tell you to blame the officials for this loss, and rightfully so as the Bobcats had their chances throughout the game to bring home a win and were unable to take advantage. Texas State falls to 10-13 overall record and 4-7 in the SLC, leaving them stuck at 9th in the SLC and last in the West Division.

A golden opportunity was also missed today by the Bobcats to jump into 8th as either A&M – Corpus or Sam Houston were guaranteed to fall to 4-6, and the Islanders eventually prevailed by 5 in Huntsville over the Bearkats. Texas State is still in the hunt to become eligible for the conference tournament as the Bearkats could easily be 4-8 by the time Saturday is over as they have to travel to both Beaumont and San Antonio to take on two tough Lamar and UTSA teams.

In order to help their postseason chances, this team will also need to bring home another road win against a 1-21 Nicholls State team next Saturday. You can tune in for the tip-off of that game at 2 pm on 89.9 KTSW and txstatebobcats.com.

Will Butler- KTSW Sports Staff Writer