No. 5 Lady Texans open conference play with 70-60 victory over No. 19 Midland

LEVELLAND — Debora Reis recorded her fourth consecutive double-double as No. 5 South Plains College outlasted No. 19 Midland 70-60 in their conference opener Monday night at the Texan Dome.

The Lady Texans improve to 4-1 on the season and 1-0 in the WJCAC and will be on the road Thursday in Borger to take on Frank Phillips College at 5:45 p.m. The game will stream live at spctexans.com.

"This is a big win for us, but we're still too inconsistent right now," South Plains head coach Ara Baten said. "We had some really good minutes early in the game, then we got away from it and had too much individuality. We have to do more things as a team. When we play together as a team we are really good. When we become individualistic we are very average. And that's on offense, that's on defense, it's in everything."

The Lady Texans jumped out to a 44-26 lead at the midway point as Reis netted 17 points and nine boards in the first 20 minutes. South Plains gave Midland fits on the defensive end, forcing the Lady Chaparrals to shoot just 39 percent in the front half, forcing 10 turnovers in the first two quarters.

South Plains would open its lead to as much as 28 in the second half, outscoring Midland 22-14 in the third quarter with five Lady Texans scoring in double figures in the game. The Lady Chaparrals would answer back in the final 10 minutes, utilizing a 20-4 run to get within 10, 70-60 with 29 seconds to go on a Dana Thompson jumper from five feet. It would be too little too late as the Lady Texans dribbled out the remaining seconds as Reis finished with 17 points and a season-high 18 boards.

"Midland made some nice adjustments in the second half," Baten said. "They spread us out a little more and drove the ball, and we didn't keep the dribble in front of us as much as we need to. Our rotations were late and we got sloppy in the second half. We got sloppy in the fourth quarter and I'm disappointed with how we finished."

Sophomore Grace Hunter was 4 of 11 from the field, netting 13 points, five rebounds and a pair of assists for the Lady Texans over 24 minutes while Ka'Lia Smith dropped in 12 points and five boards coming off the bench for the Lady Texans.

Denitsa Petrova bucketed 11 points on 4 of 5 shooting including a 3 of 4 clip in 29 minutes of action while Jordan Brown chipped in 10 points, knocking down 4 of 5 attempts from the charity stripe. The Lady Texans won the battle on the glass, outrebounding their counterpart 48-36, scoring 13 points on second-chance opportunities thanks to 19 rebounds on the offensive end.

"I thought in this game our advantage was in the post," Baten said. "They made an adjustment to that and started crowding the post and putting two and three people down there. I thought our interior players did a good job of recognizing that and pushing it back out, but we still have to recognize things and need to move the ball. We're getting better, but we have to get so much better."