No. 8 Lady Texans thump Howard 72-49 Monday in Levelland

 LEVELLAND — Gabbie Green scored 22 points and dished out seven assists as the No. 8-ranked South Plains College women's basketball team defeated Howard College 72-49 Monday night at the Texan Dome, extending their win streak to 15 games.

With the win, South Plains improves to 18-1 on the year and 3-0 in the Western Junior College Athletic Conference and will return to action next Monday at the Texan Dome when they host No. 5 New Mexico Junior College at 5:45 p.m. Monday's top 25 matchup will be streaming live at spctexans.com and Michael Wiiest of KVT Radio Levelland will call the courtside action with pregame slated for 5:30 p.m.

"I thought tonight we were very well balanced and got some people in the rotation that haven't been able to get significant minutes, and it's always good to get a win against a really well-coached team like Howard," South Plains head coach Cayla Petree said. "At the half, we talked about being somewhat flat and having those empty runs, and I thought we jumped out and responded in the second half. I think we got passive in the first half and were a lot more aggressive in the second half and they realized they were going to have to make plays."  

Green ended the night 10 of 11 from the floor over 29 minutes as the Lady Texans shot over 55 percent from the field in the contest. Freshman Nyah Morris finished with 12 points and was 4 of 8 from 3 in 24 minutes of action. Romola Dominguez netted 11 points, five boards, and five assists while Caroline Germond recorded 10 points and five steals and Keke Hunter tallied six points and four boards.

"I think we really shared the ball well and just like coach Petree said we need to get back to where we were on defense, Green said. "Our bench really stepped up and that's something we've been working on in practice is getting more people involved. Coach told us we were being passive at the half and needed to step it up and that's what we were able to do."

South Plains was relentless on the defensive end as the forced the Lady Hawks (6-9, 1-2) to shoot just 40 percent from the field and 37 percent from behind the arc. South Plains forced 24 turnovers resulting in 33 points on the offensive end and received 28 points from the bench.