STEPHENVILLE – Tarleton women’s basketball won its third straight game by forcing a season-high 29 turnovers in a 73-69 win over Texas A&M International on Saturday in Wisdom Gym.
The Texans (9-4, 3-4 LSC) topped its previous best defensive performance in turnovers forced of 25, which they’ve done twice. The 29 turnovers forced by the Texans turned into 29 points.
Mackenzie Hailey led the Texans with a game-high 21 points, 7 rebounds and 4 steals. Hailey was one of three Texans with four steals on the afternoon, joined by Lucy Benson and Alexa Hoy, who also had 17 points. The Texans recorded 18 steals, which is by far a season high.
After trailing 16-11 towards the end of the first quarter, the Texans responded with a 13-0 run to close out the quarter and lead 24-16. The run was extended to 15-0 for a double-digit lead at 26-16 to open the second quarter.
The largest lead of the game was highlighted on a 7-0 run where the Texans went up by 17 on Marissa Escamilla’s second-chance bucket with 3:30 left in the first half. Escamilla had five of the seven points during the stretch and finished with 13 points and a team-leading nine rebounds. The Texans outscored the Dustdevils 18-14 in the second to lead 42-20 at halftime.
Photos by DAVID SWEARINGEN
A&M International had its biggest run of the game in the third quarter as they outscored the Texans 21-12 to cut the lead to three with a 10-0 run to close the quarter. Tarleton was up 54-51 heading to the fourth.
The Dustdevils cut the game to one with 5:15 remaining when the Texans answered with a 5-0 run with four points from Hailey. Kandyn Faurie, who had four points on the day, hit a clutch mid-range jumper with 3:05 left to put the Texans up by four that started another 5-0 run to close the game out.
Lucy Benson added 7 points and 5 rebounds to go with 4 steals and 2 blocks. Kaitlyn Guillory (3 points), Kylie Collins (2 points, 3 steals), Callie Boyles (4 points) and Jasmine Bailey (2 points) rounded out the Texan scoring efforts.
Tarleton will travel to Oklahoma City to take on Oklahoma Christian on Thursday, Jan. 9 at 5:30 p.m.
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