The Eastern New Mexico women’s basketball team made a valiant comeback effort after being down by 17 points at the start of the fourth quarter, but the Hounds fell just short to Texas A&M-Commerce 77-70 in the Quarterfinal round of the Lone Star Conference Tournament at the Comerica Center on Friday night.
The Lions managed to get several big leads on the Greyhounds throughout the night, but Eastern managed to fight back after every Commerce run.
The two teams struggled early as neither team could score until TAMUC’s Princess Davis and Zamorye Cox traded three-pointers to make it a 3-3 game with 7:15 to go in the first quarter.
The Lions strung together six unanswered over the next two plus minutes to build a six-point lead at 9-3 before sophomore guard Jena Mehlbrech caught fire with a pair of threes on back-to-back possessions in-between a layup by TAMUC’s Agang Tac to close the gap to 11-9 with 3:46 left.
However, the Lions found their stride in the final four minutes, stringing together a 12-2 run to take a 23-11 lead after one quarter of play.
Commerce built its advantage to as much as 17 with 8:21 left in the second quarter, but the Hounds chipped away at the Lions lead over a three minute stretch. Eastern strung together an 8-2 run on buckets from Treyanna Clay, Shelby Jones, and Alivia Lewis as well as a pair of Clay free throws to make it a 33-22 game.
The Lions put together another spurt to stretch the lead back to 16 with 3:09 to go, but the Hounds again answered with six straight with layups from Clay and Lewis to go with two more Clay free throws to set the score at 40-30 with 46 seconds left until halftime.
The Lions ended up going into the locker room with some momentum as Davis made a driving layup from the left side at the buzzer to give Commerce a 12-point edge at the break.
With Commerce maintaining an 11-point edge early in the third quarter, a Mehlbrech runner in the paint ignited a 6-1 run, capped off on a jumper from Kamirah Decker from the right baseline to trim the deficit to 46-40 with 6:23 remaining in the period.
After the two teams locked down on defense for a few minutes, Texas A&M-Commerce closed out the quarter with an 11-2 run to stretch the advantage to 59-42 heading into the final quarter of play.
Despite being down by 17 points at the start of the fourth quarter, the Hounds didn’t go down without a fight. Chelsea Hunter knocked down a pullup jumper in the paint to ignite a streak of 12 unanswered through the first 2:30, as Alivia Lewis closed out the run with a layup to shrink the Lions lead to 59-54.
Eastern ran into some major foul trouble during this stretch as both Cox and Clay picked up their fourth fouls within 20 seconds of each other, forcing the Hounds to go to their bench for a large portion of the fourth quarter.
Despite being handcuffed by foul trouble, the Hounds were keep the deficit to within two possessions until Davis made a big three-pointer for the Lions to stretch their advantage to 68-59 with 3:33 to go.
On the ensuing possession, Cox came up with a huge answer as she sank a three from the right side off a Jones assist, starting a 7-0 run. The streak included a Hunter jumper as well as a Clay fastbreak layup that was setup by a Cox defensive rebound tracked down along the sideline and she found Clay down court to close the gap to 68-66 with 2:01 remaining.
TAMUC’s Chania Wright pushed the edge back to four on the following possession and the Hounds found themselves in trouble on the next possession when Clay was called for an offensive foul in the paint with 1:11 left, fouling out for the remainder of the contest.
Eastern came up with a big stop on the Lions ensuing offensive possession when Laura Rowe was able to track down a loose ball in the backcourt and went in for a fastbreak layup to make it a 70-68 game with 57 seconds left.
With 29 seconds on the clock, Davis once again made a tough shot for the Lions to push the edge back to four.
The Greyhounds comeback efforts would be thwarted in the final 30 seconds as ENMU committed a pair of costly turnovers that allowed the Lions to put the game away at the free throw line to eliminate Eastern from the LSC Tournament.
The Hounds shot 25-for-61 (41 percent) and 6-of-21 (28.6 percent) from the three-point arc for the contest, but were incredibly efficient in the fourth quarter, going 10-of-16 (62.5 percent) from the floor and 3-for-5 (60 percent) from behind the arc.
Clay led four Greyhounds in double-digits, tallying 14 points on 3-of-8 shooting and knocked down 8-of-9 from the free throw line to go with eight boards, three assists, and three blocks.
Lewis put together an outstanding game offensively and defensively, recording her sixth double-double of the season with 14 points and a game-high 11 rebounds along with four blocked shots.
Mehlbrech was big off the ENMU bench, tallying 11 points on 4-of-6 from the field and 3-of-4 from three in just 19 minutes of action while Jones closed out with 10 points on 4-for-8 shooting with five rebounds and a team-high five assists.
With the loss, the Greyhounds fall to 19-10 overall with an 18-9 record against NCAA Division II opponents.
The Hounds will now have to wait until Sunday to find out if their season will continue as there is still a strong chance for Eastern to be selected to the South Central Regional Championship field. The NCAA Division II Women’s Basketball Tournament Selection Show will air at 8 p.m. on NCAA.com.