#9 Lady Texans use strong second half to down Garden City 69-50 on Sunday

LEVELLAND, Texas—Elizabeth Cera finished with 16 points and Felicia Jackson chipped in 12 as the No. 9 South Plains College Lady Texans improved to 11-1 on the year following a 69-50 drumming of Garden City Community College on Sunday at the Texan Dome.

"We didn't come out very focused in the first half," Cera said. "We know that they beat us last year, and we couldn't let that happen again. We tried to fix the things we were doing in the first half and come out and play better in the second half."

South Plains began the contest with a 5-0 run capped off by a 3 from the top of the key from Cera. The Lady Texans extended its lead to eight with 24 seconds remaining in the first quarter following a jumper from Stella Logbognon.

Madeline Dorris converted at the rim at the 7:46 mark of the second quarter to give South Plains a 22-13 advantage. Kavita Akula's 3 from the right wing capped of a 9-0 run from Garden City which tied the game at 22 a piece with 3:50 left before the break.

A 3-pointer from Yanina Inkina followed by a conversion at the rim from Dabrasia Baty pushed the Lady Texans back in front 27-22. South Plains would eventually head into the locker room leading 32-24.

"Every possession we had in the second half we wanted to make the best of it," Jackson said. "Every time we touched the basketball we wanted to score and we just tried to find the best shots possible. We felt like we played down to our competition in the first half and came back out and tried to find better shots."

The Lady Texans did just that as they went on an 18-6 run to begin the second half. Cera put the Lady Texans up by 10 with a 3 from the left wing to push the lead to 37-27. Cera found the bucket from the perimeter once again at the 5:41 mark to extend the lead to 45-30. Cera would cap off a 13-point third quarter with another trey from the corner to push the Lady Texans' lead to 50-30.

"I was just looking for the open spots in the third quarter," Cera said. "Our coaches told me to use the screens and find the open shots, so that's what I did and it worked out well. We started shooting the ball much better in the second half and started playing as a team. Tomorrow is going to be another tough game and we need to be ready to play again."

South Plains continued to find success on offense in the final 10 minutes as Jackson hit a runner from the baseline with 8:18 to play and extend the lead to 58-38. A long 3 from Jackson from the top of the key with 5:43 remaining ended any hopes of any late game heroics and pushed the Lady Texans win streak to 11 games.

"I'm really proud of our team and this was a great team win," South Plains head coach Cayla Petree said. "The bench played some really significant minutes and really had solid production. We had great energy in the second half and our players did a great job making adjustments at the half and came out with a lot of pop and never looked back."