Women's Basketball

Candice Champion

MAVERICKS BATTLE THEIR WAY TO A 66-57 WIN AGAINST HOUSTON BAPTIST

Candice Champion Led Mavs With Game High 18 Points

Jan. 3, 2009

Houston Baptist at UT Arlington (01-03-09) Box Score

Arlington, Texas - A combined 27 bench points by juniors Kristina Grace and Meghan Nelson helped lead UT Arlington to a 66-57 victory over Houston Baptist on Saturday, January 3 at Texas Hall.

With the victory, UTA moves into conference play with a 6-7 record while HBU dropped to 4-10 overall.

"We had a bunch of different combinations that we normally wouldn't have in today's game," said head women's basketball Samantha Morrow. LaTosha Duffey is hurt and we didn't want to play her unless we really had to and we had Erin Dixon get in foul trouble early in the game. So we had Kristina Grace come in and play a lot of minutes and Shalyn Martin went down, who's probably plays more minutes than anybody on our team."

Three Mavs finished in double-figures, including senior Candice Champion who recorded a game high 18 points on 8-of-15 shooting, 2-of-2 from the free throw and added nine rebounds in 30 minutes of action.

With four ties and three lead changes in the first half, the Mavericks managed to hold the Huskies to a 34-31 advantage heading into the locker rooms. Twenty-five of UTA's 31 first half points came from forwards Champion and Grace.

UTA finished the first half shooting 40.6 percent (13-of-32) from the field, 0 percent (0-of-5) from behind the arc and 55.6 percent (5-of-9) from the free throw line.

Six consecutive turnovers led things off for the Mavericks in the second half which resulted in a 40-31 advantage by Houston Baptist with 15:53 left in the game. A Nicole Terral jumper ended HBU's 6-0 run but several more turnovers by the Mavs gave the Huskies a 12-point lead at the 14:23 mark.

In a sudden burst of energy, UT Arlington went on a 13-4 run to tie the game at 49-49 with 7:09 left on the clock. There would be four more ties in the game before UTA would silence the Huskies and notch their sixth win of the season.

"A win is a win and I like the team that came out and played the last five minutes of the game, that's the team that I want. Hopefully we can get healthy before conference play, that is our number-one priority and get this team mentally prepared. Conference games are the ones that count and it doesn't matter what your record is up to now, everybody is equal," said Morrow.

For the game, UTA finished shooting 44.3 percent (27-of-61) from the field compared to HBU's 36.2 percent (21-of-58) from the floor. The Mavericks out-rebounded the Huskies 47-32 but committed 24 team turnovers to HBU's 20.

Grace collected 15 points and seven rebounds while Nelson added 10 points and three assists.

Fallon Thomas and Cindee Wright each recorded 11 points for Houston Baptist and Jelela Simpson added 10 points.

The Mavericks will have a week off to prepare for the start of conference play where the Mavs will host Texas State on Saturday, January 10 with game time set at 4 p.m.