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2017 Tournament Central
KATY, Texas – After watching his team miss 26 of their first 32 shots, Texas A&M-Corpus Christi head coach Royce Chadwick knew he and his staff would need to find a way to spark the Islanders if they wanted more than a brief stay at the Southland Conference Women’s Basketball Tournament.
Sparked by an improved offensive game plan, Texas A&M-Corpus Christi mounted a 16-3 third quarter run and pulled away as the fifth-seeded Islanders eliminated eighth-seed Northwestern State 57-46 on Thursday afternoon at the Merrell Center, advancing to play fourth-seeded New Orleans at 11 a.m. on Friday.
“We tried to get some looks for our shooters and tried to get our high-low going,” said Chadwick, whose program won their first Southland Conference Tournament game since 2010. “We made some big plays. You have to, because that’s what March basketball is all about. You have to make plays to survive.”
Whatever the Islanders (13-17) did during intermission worked wonders for them in the decisive third, as the shots that failed to fall in the opening 20 minutes found their mark. Methodically, A&M-Corpus Christi whittled down the margin and gained their first lead of the game when Brittany Mbamalu’s layup gave them a 26-25 edge with 5:42 left.
Everything that could go wrong for Northwestern State (13-17) did in a nightmarish third quarter that saw the Demons shoot just three of 17 from the field. Consecutive baskets from Cheyenne Brown gave them a 25-22 lead early in the period, yet it would be 7:02 before Northwestern State could find a basket when First Team All-Conference guard Beatrice Attura scored in the closing seconds of the quarter to trim the deficit to 38-28 entering the fourth.
Attura and Brown, who both scored 16 points each, comprised almost all the offense for a Demons team that shot a paltry 28.1 percent from the field. The two combined for 40 of the team’s 57 field goal attempts yet were only able to find the mark 12 times.
“The thing that got us in the second half was definitely their depth and the fact that they were able to send waves in and pressure us defensively,” said first-year Northwestern State head coach coach Jordan Dupuy.
Still, with their season on the line, the Demons mounted one final rally, opening the fourth quarter with six straight points to close within 40-36. The breech back into the contest met a barrier in the form of a three-point play from Kassie Jones, who then followed with a fast break layup to extend the Islanders’ margin back to 46-36.
An Attura triple and a basket from Brown cut the gap in half, yet Brittany Mbamalu responded with a deep ball to stretch Texas A&M-Corpus Christi’s margin back to 49-41. Dalesia Booth, who led the Islanders with 14 points, then put the game away with a pair of free throws and a jumper just inside the three-point line with 1:22 left.
“We ran just one offense in the second half,” said Chadwick. “They just did a good job of going out and executing it.”
The Demons were carried by the offense of Attura and Brown, as the duo combined to score 15 of their 20 first half points. Brown scored the last six, including a bucket as the first half horn sounded to give Northwestern State a 20-16 lead at intermission.
Neither team could find their accuracy in the opening quarter. A&M-Corpus Christi missed their first ten shots before Daleisa Booth finally put the Islanders on the board nearly eight minutes into the contest. Combined, both squads connected on just six of 28 of their attempts in the first ten minutes of play.
Attura, who won the 2015 Women’s Tournament Most Valuable Player as a member of the Demons’ second straight tournament championship, also leaves the Northwestern State program as the school’s 12th all-time leading scorer.