McNeese splits games

LAKE CHARLES-- The McNeese women’s basketball team opened its Southland Conference home schedule with a commanding 72-51 win over Texas A&M-Corpus Christi to remain undefeated at home with a 6-0 record. The win improves McNeese to 105 overall and 2-1 in the SLC. Texas A&M-CC falls to 3-11 on the season and remains winless in league play at 0-4.

“Its important to get these wins at home,” said head coach Brooks Donald Williams. “It’s a huge confidence booster and it was good to be back in front of our home crowd.”

For the second game in a row at least three Cowgirls scored in double figures. Allison Baggett led all players with 14 points on 4 of 10 from the field including two three-pointers. Amber Donnes pitched in 11 points, nine of which game off of 3-pointers. Jasmyn Carswell rounded out the double figure scoring with 11 points. Frederica Haywood led all players with 11 rebounds, it’s her second straight game with 10 or more boards.

From the opening tip, the Cowgirls looked like they were glad to be back home in their own environment as McNeese took a 5-4 lead three minutes into the game and never looked back. The Cowgirls shot the ball extremely well from the field the entire game, ending with a 50.9 field goal percent, connecting on 27 of 53 attempts. The Cowgirls were even better from behind the arc, making 9 of 17.

McNeese outscored the Islanders in three of the four quarters and held a 42-21 halftime lead. McNeese took a double digit lead with 3:07 left in the second quarter and held a double digit lead the rest of the way, taking its largest lead of 27 with 5:58 to play.

McNeese will hit the road for a game at Abilene Christian next Wednesday before returning home for four straight beginning with a 1 p.m. game against Sam Houston State next Saturday.

LAKE CHARLES – Texas A&M-Corpus Christi used a 22-4 second half run over a 9:01 span and McNeese was held without a field goal for 7:52 in the same half as the Cowboys squandered a 38-36 halftime lead and fell 77-68 here Saturday afternoon in Southland Conference action.

The loss was the fourth straight suffered by the Cowboys who fell to 2-11 overall and 0-3 in the league. AMCC improved to 11-3 and 2-0.

McNeese trailed just once in the first half when Rashawn Thomas hit two free throws just 13 seconds into the game to give the Islanders a 2-0 lead. McNeese tied the game on a Tevin Jackson jumper then went up on a Craig McFerrin layup and never looked back en route to a 2-point halftime lead.

“We did a good job in the first half,” said head coach Dave Simmons. “We made our shots, did a good job on the boards and really held (Brandon) Pye in check.”

McFerrin, who scored 8 points for the Cowboys, put McNeese up 42-38 with 16:43 to play in the game. That’s when AMCC’s Pye took over and scored 9 of the Islanders next 20 points to help Corpus build a 60-46 lead just eight minutes later. Pye, who finished with 19 points, scored 17 of those in the second half.

McNeese snapped its field goal drought on a layup by Jamaya Burr with 5:58 to play to cut the deficit to 62-50. That started a run that saw Burr and Jarren Greenwood connect on back-to-back 3s to cut the lead to 64-58 with 4:13 to play.

Burr led the Cowboys with 17 points while Greenwood added 14.

Corpus built the lead back up to 9 with 3:20 to play but a three by Matthew Moss trimmed it to 6 again at 67-61 with 3:05 to go but the Cowboys were unable to get any closer.

“We got better tonight,” said Simmons. “We came out flat in the second half and they went on their run. But we fought back and got back into the game. We got some good effort from all of our players. We battled.”

McNeese definitely improved in the area of rebounds where it held a 36-27 advantage over the Islanders, including a 12-8 edge in offensive boards.

But an area that severely disabled McNeese was in the turnover department where the Cowboys committed 20 miscues that led to 23 Corpus points.

McNeese connected on 42 percent from the field (20-48) and was 8 of 24 from three-point range while Corpus hit 24 of 53 for 45 percent and 3 of 10 from long range. The Islanders hit 26 of 32 foul shots and McNeese 20 of 27. A total of 48 fouls were called in the game.

Rashawn Thomas led Corpus with 28 points and 11 rebounds while Hameed Ali scored 11.

McNeese will be off for the next few days before returning to action next Saturday at home against Sam Houston State.