Women's Basketball Drops Quarterfinal Heartbreaker
February 29, 2008

Cheered on by over 1,300 fans, the UT Tyler women’s basketball team battled back from a 14-point deficit but couldn’t overcome their shooting woes and dropped a 75-74 heartbreaker to Mary Hardin-Baylor in the quarterfinal round of the American Southwest Conference Women’s Basketball Championship Tournament at the Herrington Patriot Center.

The Patriots end their season with 17-9 record while Mary Hardin-Baylor (15-11) advances to the semifinal round to face No. 8 McMurry at 5 p.m. Saturday.

Down ten with just over six minutes remaining, freshman Melissa Thomas nailed back-to-back three pointers to bring the Patriots to within four at 6:42, and hit a jumper at 1:50 to cut the UMHB lead to three. Turnovers and missed shots, as had been the case most of the night, then plagued the Patriots the last two minutes.

Overall, UT Tyler shot just 38 percent from the field, sinking only 24 of 63 shots attempted. That’s compared to the 48.5 percent shot by UMHB, including an 11-for-15 night from Landie Thomas, the Lady Cru’s top scorer with 25 points.

Senior Kasey Buggs and Thomas both had 20 points on the night to lead the Patriots. Becky Taylor led all players with 10 rebounds.

The Patriots committed 17 turnovers in the loss.

UT Tyler’s largest lead of the game came at 4:32 in the first when Lindsay Eaton tipped-in a missed layup by Thomas to put the Patriots up 31-26. However, the Patriots missed their next six field goal attempts while UMHB hit its next five of six and took a 40-35 lead into the break.

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