Bearkat Women Return to Action Monday Night
12/12/2015 12:11:00 AM | Women's Basketball
With finals out of the way, the Sam Houston women's basketball team is ready to get back to action with a pair of non-conference tilts next week.
First the Bearkats will travel to Houston to take on Texas Southern Monday night at 6 p.m. Then the Sam women play their first home game in more than three weeks when they host the Rice Owls Thursday night at 6:30 p.m. at Bernard G. Johnson Coliseum.
Last time out Sam Houston rallied for a 63-56 road victory over LIU-Brooklyn to even the women's season mark at 3-3. The Kats stand as one of only six teams in the 13-member Southland Conference with a .500 or better record so far during the 2015-16 season.
Senior guard Shernise Robertson has taken up where she left off last year when she earned first team All-Southland honors as the league's leading scorer. Robertson stands fourth in the Southland right now with 16.0 points a game. She's also fifth in the league in assists with 3.8 per contest.
Angela Beadle, a senior 6-3 post player who earned all-league honors two years ago before missing last season with an injury, ranks third in the league in rebounds (8.3) and 14th in scoring with a 12.2 average.
“We're excited about the way this team is coming together,” head coach Brenda Welch-Nichols said. “We've surrounded Shernise and Angela with a strong supporting cast and are improving every game.”
Three newcomers are adding scoring power to the women's team. Laurynn McGowen, a 5-8 freshman guard from Seguin High School in Arlington, is scoring 9.7 points and pulling down 3.8 rebounds per contest. Kamry Orr, a 5-8 freshman from Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, is scoring at a 6.3 points per game rate. Jasmine McCants, a 6-0 post player from Alabama Southern Community College, has contributed under the boards as well.
“We have four more non-conference games to get us ready for the start of Southland Conference play,” Welch-Nichols said. “After Thursday's home game with Rice we play four on the road. We're going to be tested.”
Sam Houston closes non-conference action against Kansas State in Manhattan, Kansas, on Saturday, December 19 the, after Christmas, travels to Austin to face the Texas Longhorns on Sunday December 27.
The women open Southland Conference play the first week in January with a road swing that sees them play at Incarnate Word in San Antonio on Saturday January 2 and Northwestern State in Natchitoches, La., on Monday January 4.
Sam Houston's first Southland Conference home game will be Thursday, Jan. 7, when the Kats play host to Southeastern Louisiana at 6:30 p.m.
Tickets to all Sam Houston's men's and women's basketball home games are available online at www.gobearkats.com or at the SHSU athletic ticket office located on the west side of Elliott T. Bowers Stadium.
