IW comes from behind to beat Dustdevils, 64-56

The lady Dustdevils struggled to stay afloat with the Incarnate Word Cardinals throughout the entire game.

The Cards defeated TAMIU 64-56, on Jan. 20. With the loss the Dustdevils' three-game winning streak was broken.

What maybe seemed to be a close game during the first half, with the Cardinals slightly leading at 27-26, took a different route with a sluggish Dustdevils' second half.

Incarnate Word opened the second half with a 13-2 run and never looked back. The Dustdevils managed to close the lead to six points with only 12 seconds left on the clock, but were incapable of getting the win.

Leading the Dustdevils were seniors Jermina Tomlinson, with 16 points and nine rebounds, and Vanessa Villareal, with 15 points.

The greatest impact of the game came from the bench according to Daryl Vincent, women's basketball head coach.

"Players like Mary Tobias and Jenny Mendez came off the bench and did exactly what I asked them to do and it helped us stay in the game."

Unfortunately for the Dustdevils, that wasn't enough to keep their 3-game winning streak going.

Cardinals Nia Torru and Hayley Harvey proved to be too much for the lady Dustdevils as they each contributed 21 and 20 points to their win.

Offensive rebounds were another part of the game the Dustdevils lacked on Jan. 20.

Incarnate Word had 18 offensive rebounds while the Dustdevils only managed to get six.

"We need to get physically stronger in our inside game which of course will allow us (Dustdevils) to become more competitive on our offensive rebounds," says Mary Tobias, one of the Dustdevils' point guards and a freshmen.

Incarnate Word also shot 30 percent from the 3-point line while the Dustdevils only shot 6 percent.

Incarnate Word did a lot of things right during the Jan. 20 game, but Vincent still believes "(we) lost because of what we didn't do not because of what the other team did."

Tobias added, "we plan to go back to practice and work hard at improving ourselves by the next game."