Lady Texans drum Frank Phillips 80-68 Monday night to set up conference showdown with Odessa on Thursday

BORGER—Elizabeth Cera scored 20 points and Jasauen Beard finished with 17 points and 10 boards as the No. 8 South Plains College Lady Texans downed Frank Phillips College 80-68 on Monday night to improve to 22-3 on the year and 7-2 in the Western Junior College Athletic Conference.

"I thought we did a good job of controlling the runs in the game," South Plains head coach Cayla Petree said." We came out pretty hot, and obviously with our depth right now we got a little tired, but I thought we did a good job of controlling the pace. We didn't get too high or too low and played pretty solid."

Yanina Inkina finished the contest with 15 points and nine boards for South Plains while Brittany Smith totaled 14 points, seven rebounds and seven assists. Joneva Huey tallied eight points and Taylor Holley finished with four.

"We came out in the first half pretty fired up," Huey said. "We came out a little flat in the second half but were able to pick it up and get the win. We were just trying to move the ball a lot and throw their defensive rotation off a little bit and attack the middle. We have a big one on Thursday night and need to rise to the occasion like we usually do."

South Plains shot 56 percent from the floor and 45 percent from the 3-point line in the first 20 minutes. The Lady Texans outscored the Lady Plainsmen 22-17 in the first 10 minutes before carrying a 41-24 lead into the break at the half. Monday's win marks five consecutive for South Plains dating back to Jan. 19.

The Lady Texans will now look to shock the landscape of the women's junior college basketball world when they travel to play No. 1 Odessa on Thursday night with tipoff set for 5:45 p.m. In their first matchup on Jan. 9 at the Texan Dome, the Lady Wranglers were able to escape with a 79-72 victory, and currently sit atop of the WJCAC with a 7-1 record.

"I don't think I'll have to do a lot to get them emotionally fired up for Thursday," Petree said. "That comes from just being a competitor, and our girls do a great job of being ready to play. We will tweak a few things that we did, and obviously when we played them the first time I thought we played very well. I think there are some things we can do better and exploit a little bit. Odessa is very good, but so are we, and one of the things we are really trying to focus on is us and focus on the things that we can control."