Women’s Basketball Soar Past Chanticleers

The Bobcats are right back in action, hosting Appalachian State on Saturday afternoon.

SAN MARCOS, Texas – The Texas State women’s basketball team (15-7, 8-3 SBC) sprinted out to an early lead and never looked back, defeating Coastal Carolina (11-11, 5-6 SBC), 78-69, inside Strahan Coliseum on Thursday night. The game was a rematch of a 65-64 CCU victory back on Dec. 31, 2017.

Both coaching staffs and the Texas State support staff wore orange ribbons during the game as part of the ‘Dating Violence Awareness’ game. The Bobcat women’s basketball team partnered with Hays-Caldwell Women’s Center, an organization that serves victims of family violence, sexual assault and child abuse in Caldwell County and Hays County.

“What a game,” head coach Zenarae Antoine said. “Obviously, we built a hefty lead early and found a way to sustain it at the end by making good decisions with the basketball, not rushing into shots they were trying to force and we found ourselves on the winning end.”

Unlike the previous two ball games, the Bobcats jumped out to an early advantage. TXST held a 26-11 lead after the first 10 minutes of action. Ti’Aira Pitts put on a shooting clinic in the first frame, knocking down her first three attempts from beyond the 3-point line. She tallied nine points and a pair of assists in the opening quarter of play.

The Chanticleers attempted to make a run to start the second, cutting the Bobcat lead to single digits. The home team responded with a 15-0 run to balloon the lead back up to 24 points. The run began with a 3-pointer from Pitts, giving her a career-high four made triples. Toshua Leavitt and Brooke Holle splashed in a 3-pointer each. The momentum of the run allowed the Bobcats to take a commanding 41-22 lead into intermission.

Similarly to the second quarter, CCU mounted another comeback attempt. The Chanticleers were able to chip away at the Bobcat lead and with four minutes left in the third, Coastal Carolina trailed by 10 points. A wide-open layup from Pitts, off of a nifty assist from Taeler Deer, followed by a 12-foot jumper from Avionne Alexander righted the ship for the Bobcats.

Coastal Carolina staged one more comeback attempt to open the final quarter of play, spurting out to a quick 9-0 run to trim the Bobcat lead to six with just under six minutes of game time remaining. Leavitt drilled her fifth and sixth 3-pointers of the contest to seal the game, giving Texas State an 11-point triumph.

Leavitt led the way for the Bobcats, scoring a team-high 27 points on 10-of-15 shooting. The junior guard continued her torrid pace from behind the 3-point line, connecting on 6-of-9 attempts from deep. She has run her season total to 106, just nine makes shy of tying the single-season Sun Belt Conference record for made 3-pointers. For the second consecutive game, Leavitt played the full 40 minutes.

Pitts, who provided the early spark for the Bobcats, finished the evening with 16 points on 6-of-8 shooting, including 4-of-5 from behind the 3-point line. The senior forward added three assists and a pair of blocks while logging 34 minutes of action.

Despite being hampered by early foul trouble, Deer put together a solid outing of 15 points, six assists and a pair of blocks. The Houston native connected on 6-of-11 shot attempts for the game.

Senior forward Erica May brought down 11 rebounds, all on the defensive end of the court, to lead TXST. She also handed out six assists and scored nine points in 38 minutes on the court.

As a team, Texas State shot 31-of-56 (55.4 percent) from the floor and 12-of-21 (57.1 percent) from deep. The game marked the 12th time this season that the Bobcats made at least 10 3-point field goals. Of TXST’s 31 made field goals, 26 came via the assist.

The Bobcats are right back in action, hosting Appalachian State on Saturday afternoon. TXST opened Sun Belt Conference play with a victory over App, 69-54, back on Dec. 29, 2017. Saturday’s game against the Mountaineers is scheduled for 2:00 p.m. and will be the team’s annual Play4Kay Pink Game.

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