CANYON– The Texas A&M University-Commerce women's basketball team lost 81-70 to No. 8 West Texas A&M on Thursday night. The Lady Buffs built a lead in the third quarter and a late run by the Lions came up short.
 
The loss brings the Lions to 10-5 on the season and 5-2 in the Lone Star Confernece and snaps a seven-game win streak for A&M-Commerce. WT improves to 14-1 and 6-1 in conference play.
 
The Lions return to action on Saturday with a road game against Eastern New Mexico. The game will be played at 3 p.m. CST at Greyhound Arena in Portales, N.M.
 
INSIDE THE BOX SCORE
- Chania Wright (DeSoto) led the Lions with 13 points, shooting 5-for-13 from the field.
- Maddison Glass (Missouri City - Hightower) had 10 points and Alexus Jones (Lewisville - Aledo) also had 10 points.
- Princess Davis (Shreveport, La.) had eight points and led the team with two assists. Davis co-led the team with five rebounds, along with Agang Tac (Garland - Sachse)
- The Lions shot 38 percent from the field while WT shot 53 percent. The Lions missed 13 free throws in the contest.
- After trailing by as many as 24 in the fourth, the Lions cut the WT lead to just 10 points in the final minute.

HEAD COACH JASON BURTON AFTER THE GAME
- On the team's shooting struggles: "It was just one of those days shooting-wise, where the ball didn't fall in the bucket and we didn't have our usual defensive intensity. Sometimes that is sparked when you have success on the offensive end and you get a little more hyped to play defense, and we didn't play that same caliber of defense that we are accustomed to. We allowed WT to get a great start, and one of the things we talked about in our seven-game win streak was not playing from behind. I thought the effort at the end of the game was winning effort, but it was far too late."
- On what the loss will mean: "I think tonight was somewhat of an aberration because we've played so strong in the last month. There are little things we need to clean up and get better. Defensively, we weren't the same team that we're used to being. I don't think it was necessarily anything WT did, but we've got to wake up. When you go on the road and play the eighth-ranked team in the country, your attention to detail better be pretty high. When it's not, it's going to be tough to get a win. Sometimes a loss refocuses you and allows you to get back to the details and clean up things we got a little stagnant on."
 
HOW IT HAPPENED
The Lions scored the first basket of the game before the Lady Buffs scored six points in a row to take the lead. Tac had the hot hand early for the Lions, scoring seven points in the quarter. Midway through the quarter, the Lions trailed 12-8. The lead stayed around four points before a late run by WT sent the Lions into the second quarter trailing 20-13.
 
Early in the quarter, WT pushed its lead to double figures. The Lions continued to battle, cutting the lead back down to seven points. Turnovers plagued both teams in the second quarter, with neither team able to gain much ground. Glass hit a three-pointer at the buzzer to send A&M-Commerce into halftime trailing 38-31.
 
Tac and Glass both had seven points in the first half. The Lions shot 38 percent in the half while WT shot 54 percent. The Lions had seven offensive rebounds in the half. The Lions struggled from the line, going 3-for-9 in the first half.
 
The Lions cut the WT lead to six points early in the third quarter before WT went on a 10-0 run to take their largest lead of the game. WT continued to build its lead, taking a 61-41 lead into the fourth quarter.
 
 After trailing by 23 in the quarter, the Lions went on a late run to cut the Lady Buff lead in half. The Lion bench capitalized on several WT turnovers. Glass made an and-one and Delyssa Miller got to the foul line four times to cut into the lead. However, the Lions could not overcome the WT lead.