COMMERCE – The University of the Incarnate Word Cardinals outscored the East Texas A&M University women's basketball team, 20-8, in the fourth quarter to spoil the Lions' senior day on the Hunt Regional Healthcare Court in the Field House with a 71-61 win on Saturday afternoon.
 
The Lions fall to 12-14 on the season, having lost four in a row and are now 8-11 in Southland Conference play with three games left in the regular season. East Texas A&M remains in a tie for seventh place in the conference standings and needs a win as well as a loss by HCU to clinch a berth into the eight-team conference tournament.
 
SENIOR DAY
Prior to the game, the Lions honored their five seniors: Ahmya Boyce (Newport News, Va.), J'Unti Franklin (Natchitoches, La.), Alva Hedrich (Muecke, Germany), Keiori Lee (Flint, Mich.), and Trinity Moreland (Charlotte, N.C.).
 
UIW has won the last seven regular season meetings between the teams and improved to 13-13 overall and 11-8 against SLC opponents.
 
The Cardinals entered the fourth quarter trailing 53-51 and gave up the first basket of the quarter to fall behind by four with 8:57 left. A Lion scoring drought of over three minutes allowed UIW to scored nine in a row as well as 20 of the next 22 points, to take a game-best 14-point lead.
 
There were seven lead changes and seven ties in the game, but the Lions did not have a lead bigger than four. East Texas A&M is now 11-1 this season when it entered the fourth quarter with a lead and 31-5 under third-year coach Valerie King.
 
Nina Horvath (Oberwart, Austria) scored a team-best 12 points, with Reza Po (San Bruno, Calif.) adding 13 points, and Franklin scoring 10 points and seven rebounds off the bench.
 
Brynn Lusby led all scorers with 22 points off the bench for the Cardinals.
 

POST GAME INTERVIEW

UP NEXT
The final road trip of the regular season begins on Thursday at A&M-Corpus Christi, with tip-off set for 7 p.m.