By Tom Waddill, Huntsville Item
Britni Martin scored 26 points and Sequeena Thomas added 17 and pulled down 12 rebounds to lead Sam Houston to an 82-67 Southland Conference women's basketball victory at Bernard G. Johnson Coliseum Wednesday night.
The victory put Sam Houston at 4-0 for only the second time in the Bearkats' 24 years in the Southland. SHSU started with four straight league wins previously in 1998.
Sam Houston, now 10-8 for the year, never trailed, leading 42-26 at halftime and by as many as 21 points in the second half. Picked to finish sixth in the Southland's West Division, Sam Houston State stayed on top of the conference standings, one game ahead of Texas-San Antonio, which beat Northwestern State 80-68 on Wednesday in San Antonio.
"I'm excited," a bubbly Bearkats coach Brenda Nichols said. "It's been a great year for us. We're trying to build on those tough games early on. Our girls are starting to build that mental toughness and that's why we're 4-and-0 right now."
The Bearkats (10-8 overall) finished the first half on a 17-6 run to open up a 16-point lead.
Martin popped a 3-pointer after junior Jaleesa Thomas stole the ball from the Bobcats. That was all the Bearkats needed to get the rout off and running.
Nichols' fiery bunch kept Texas State (0-3 in SLC play, 5-11 overall) from closing the gap too much in the second half. Frantically, the Bobcats pressured the ball all over the court and got within nine with about five minutes left, but in the blink of an eye the Bearkats had pushed their lead back to 16.
"That was true grit in that stretch right there," Nichols boasted.
Senior Terrah Austin went inside and scored to put SHSU up by 11, then Martin swished a huge 3-pointer on a pass from Khamra Echols. Echols followed that with a pair of free throws to give the Bearkats a comfortable 16-point advantage with two minutes to play.
Sequeena Thomas put a fitting cap on her team's latest win with a crowd-pleasing swat of a shot and subsequent rebound.
"We're really focused on intensity right now and not giving up," Sequeena Thomas said. "We're also working on playing our game instead of playing down to the level of our competition.
"After the Texas game," Thomas added of the Bearkats' lopsided 94-50 loss in Austin early this month, "we regrouped. We went in there and played just like it was any other game. We played hard but not hard enough. All of us got it in our heads that when we got into conference we weren't going to let that happen again."
Nichols, a gritty competitor as a player at Sam Houston back in the late 1980s, sure likes the way the Bearkats have opened the Southland portion of the season. Thirteen of SHSU's 14 players saw action Wednesday, and all contributed in some way, according to their coach.
"What I love about this team is that on any given night, any of our players can step up," Nichols said. "Jasmine Johnson helped us tonight. We needed some extra legs at the guard position. She went in and pulled 10 points. Zoe Tucker played four minutes and she got four rebounds. That's pretty good.
"Everybody contributed."
Echols scored nine points with four steals. Chanice Smith scored seven, Clarke Davis had five, while Austin and Jaleesa Thomas each tossed in four points.
The Kats hit 9 of 22 shots from 3-point range and connected on 23 of 29 from the free-throw line.
The biggest contributors were the Bearkats' top two scorers, Martin and Sequeena Thomas.
"Twelve rebounds and 17 points, Sequeena really was a warrior again tonight," Nichols said. "And Britni Martin stepped up when we needed her to step up. ... She played her game. It was her night to step up."
The Bearkats play at home Saturday afternoon when Texas A&M-Corpus Christi comes to Johnson Coliseum for a 2 p.m. contest.
Saturday is Montgomery County day with all fans who can show proof of residence in Montgomery County admitted to the contest for just $1.
Tickets for all Sam Houston sports events are onsale online at www.gobearkats.com/tickets and at the SHSU athletic ticket office in the Ron Mafrige Field House at Bowers Stadium. Ticket office hours are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. The telephone number is 936 294-1729.
