STEPHENVILLE – Tarleton unofficially opened up the season with a 63-46 home win over Texas Wesleyan Thursday night in Wisdom Gym.
The game opened up with Tarleton holding a slim 5-3 lead after the first minute and a half before a three-ball from Kyle Collins kickstarted the Tarleton offense. Collins’ trey started an 11-0 Tarleton run over the next four minutes of the opening half while Tarleton built a 16-3 lead. Despite a three-point answer from the Lady Rams, Tarleton took a double-digit lead into the second quarter at 16-6.
After Wesleyan scored the first two points of the second quarter, McKinley Bostad struck from downtown to start another big run for the TexAnns – this time a 14-3 surge to build a 30-11 advantage with just under two to play in the opening half. Tarleton would end up taking a 34-18 edge into halftime.
Texas Wesleyan came out swinging in the new half, cutting Tarleton’s lead to just seven in the opening five minutes before three straight buckets from Mackenzie Hailey, Lucy Benson, and Kaylee Allen took the Tarleton lead back to double digits.
TheFlashToday.com photos by David Swearingen
The Lady Rams continued to claw and pulled within five in the final two minutes, but Tarleton got six straight points to end the quarter – four from Marissa Escamilla and two from Allen – to send Tarleton into the fourth with an 11-point lead. Tarleton led by double figures the entire fourth quarter to earn the win.
Hailey (14) and Bostad (11) combined for 25 points in the win while Katie Webster (8), Allen (7), and Collins (3) rounded out the starting lineup with 18 points. Freshman Kandyn Faurie led the bench scoring with nine while Escamilla (4), Benson (3), Destiney Winkfield (3), and Hannah Hyde (1) rounded out the scoring for the TexAnns.
Tarleton shot .414 from the floor and .367 from downtown. Full official stats are not released in exhibition play.
The TexAnns will return to action Saturday afternoon in their final exhibition game of the preseason against Hardin-Simmons at 11 a.m. There will only be live stats available for the exhibition. Tarleton will open the regular season next Friday at home against Rogers State at 5 p.m. in the F&M Bank Tip-Off Classic.
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