Cowgirls Fall to #3 Lady Texans

WARNER---In any sports season it's always beneficial to get a strong competitive test before you get into the heart of your schedule. And that game came for the Connors State Cowgirls Saturday as fell to nationally third-ranked South Plains College (Tx) 72-45.

    "I don't mind playing teams like this because it helps us figure out where we're at," said Cowgirls head coach Jamie Fisher. "I think you learn more from a loss like this than you do with a 50-point win over a lesser opponent. There's a reason they're ranked third in the country and we learned that we have a lot of things we have to work on."

     Turnovers and rebounds were two of those concerns that the loss brought out for Connors as they committed 22 turnovers and were outrebounded by the more athletic Lady Texans who were 32-1 last year.

    "We didn't do either of those things well tonight and credit South Plains for that. They put intense ball pressure on you which caused many of those turnovers," said Fisher.

    Connors (1-1) didn't help their cause any at the charity line either where they hit just 5-of-13 attempts.

    "We hung in their with them for a while but they're a very sound team and they have three or four kids that can score the ball and they were really a mismatch problem for us. But I thought we played hard and competed and now we have a couple of games left before we start conference play to learn from a loss like this," stated Fisher.

    Connors was led by Jasmyn Taylor and Chalynn Mayes both of whom had nine points while the Lady Texans (2-0) were paced by Viktoria Ivanova with 16.

   The Cowgirls return to action Tuesday with a 5 p.m. contest against the Oklahoma Wesleyan JV at Melvin Self Fieldhouse. 

Story By: Nick Hampton