After picking a pair of wins in Lone Star Conference play last week, the Eastern New Mexico women’s basketball team made the jump to seventh in the D2SIDA South Central Regional Poll released on Monday.
The weekly poll, sponsored by the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) is voted upon by six sports information directors from the South Central region, three of which from the Lone Star/Heartland Conferences and three from the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference.
Eastern fell from fifth to eighth in the last poll after dropping a heartbreaker to Oklahoma Christian, but climbed back to seventh after going 2-1 last week. With 26 votes, ENMU finished four votes ahead of LSC rival Tarleton State and placed just four votes back of Lubbock Christian, who defeated the Hounds 64-48 on New Year’s Eve.
Despite the tough start to the week for ENMU, the Hounds managed to bounce back with their first road win of the season Thursday night in a 58-46 victory at Western New Mexico. On Saturday, the Greyhounds never trailed against UT-Permian Basin but received a tough challenge from the Falcons before pulling away late for the 61-55 win.
The top two spots in this week’s poll are occupied by LSC teams as West Texas A&M held serve at the No. 1 spot after getting wins at UTPB and WNMU while Angelo State maintained its No. 2 ranking after handing Texas Woman’s its first conference loss.
St. Mary’s (HC) occupied the third spot in the poll while a pair of RMAC teams in Colorado Mesa and Westminster rounded out the top five. Black Hills State (RMAC) fell to ninth in this week’s poll while a trio of teams tied for tenth in CSU-Pueblo (RMAC), St. Edward’s (HC), and Texas A&M-Commerce (LSC).
Eastern will battle it’s third regionally-ranked opponent of the season this week as the Hounds will travel to Angelo State for a 4:30 p.m. game on Thursday before wrapping up the week at Texas A&M-Kingsville at 1 p.m. on Saturday.
