The Mustangs had a chance to stake their claim as WAC contenders Saturday and saw it narrowly slip through their hands in a 69-62 loss against WAC leader Louisiana Tech. SMU, despite trailing by 10 with 4:17 to go, battled back to cut the lead to three with 28 seconds left on a Sarah Davis lay-up. Then a pair of questionable calls went against the Mustangs. After Davis’ lay-up, the Mustangs triple teamed the in-bounds pass along the baseline causing an apparent five-second call before La. Tech was awarded a timeout with 22 seconds on the clock. On the ensuing inbounds play, a foul was called as the Mustangs began a trap on Tasha Crain when there was apparently no contact, which gave her two free throws that she calmly nailed to essentially ice the game.
The game showed in many ways how far the Mustangs have come, and at the same time a little bit of how much they need to learn. The Mustangs, who have never won against the La. Tech Lady Techsters in 16 meetings, took the lead early in the contest behind the hot shooting of Katy Cobb who scored 11 of the Mustangs’ first 16 on her way to a career-high 23 points on 9-of-13 shooting on the night.
“Cobb doesn’t play like a freshman when she’s shooting the ball,” Coach Rhonda Rompola said. The Mustangs led 23-18 with under five minutes to go in the first half only to squander the lead as the Bulldogs tied the score at 27 entering halftime, and it would be the last time the Mustangs would see the score tied as the Bulldogs held a four- to six-point lead for much of the second half before pulling away with a 10-1 run to take their 12-point lead with two minutes to go.
“We made some young mistakes (during their late run), but we need our upperclassmen to show up,” Rompola said, referring to juniors Sarah Davis, Kendall Shead and senior Shonte Roberts, who combined for only 6 points on 2-of-18 shooting from the field and 1-of-7 shooting from the free throw line. La. Tech’s tandem of guards led them throughout the day as Lakiste Barkus and Tasha Crain combined for 37 points on the afternoon as they hit every big shot when their team needed it.
“We really tried to play off of Barkus, and tried to go under the on-ball picks for Crain because they do a great job of driving and getting to the free throw line,” Rompola said, “but they did a great job of making shots when they needed to.”
The Mustangs also were hurt when Katie Gross had to leave the game early in the second half when she committed her fifth foul. Gross finished out the game with 11 points on 5-of-12 shooting, but just as importantly, she, along with Cobb, were keeping La. Tech from sagging too much on post Janielle Dodds who scored 17 points and grabbed seven rebounds. “We made mistakes today,” said Dodds, “and hopefully we will correct them when we play them again.”
The Mustangs will get a rematch with the Lady Techsters Feb. 19th in Ruston, La., but they will be facing a tougher Tech group as preseason-WAC player of the year Erica Taylor will be full speed by then. Against SMU, Taylor’s first appearance of the season after having a baby, she scored five points in only 11 minutes. The loss leaves SMU (13-4, 4-3 WAC) three games behind the Lady Techsters (11-4, 7-0) in the league standings. The Mustangs have to shake this loss off as they head to El Paso to take on the UTEP Miners on Thursday at 8 p.m.
