Dec. 13, 2008

The Lady Broncs held onto a hard fought win as UTPA defeated the Lady Islanders 56-53 on Saturday (Dec. 13) night at the UTPA Fieldhouse.

"We set the tempo and our defense played tremendous. It's a hard fought battle every time we play Corpus. This game was very physical and was not for the meek, mild or timid," said head women's basketball coach DeAnn Craft.

The Lady Broncs never gave the Lady Islanders a chance as UTPA held the lead throughout the entire contest. Corpus came as close as one on two occasions, once in the first and the other late in the second.

The Lady Broncs stepped it up in the second half as they held a double-digit lead through most of the second with their biggest lead of 12 in the beginning of the second.

Corpus dropped the Lady Broncs lead to two with 33 seconds left to play on a three-point shot by Jade Davis but a free throw shot from Epiphany Smith would secure the Lady Broncs with a 56-53 win with 24 seconds left to play.

"Epiphany took over again as she had been doing so often. She hit a huge shot for us to give us the 2-point possession game," added Craft.

Epiphany Smith finished the night with a career-high 17 points along with five rebounds, three assists and one steal.

Teshay Winfrey was the only other Lady Bronc to finish in double-figures as she scored 10 points and eight rebounds shooting 4-of-13 from the field and a perfect 2-of-2 from the line along with a career-high five assists.

The Lady Broncs shot 40 percent (21-52) from the field with 33 percent (5-15) from behind the arc and 69 percent (9-13) from the free throw line.

Jade Davis shined for the Lady Islanders once again as she finished with 17 points, four boards, five assists and four steals.

The Lady Broncs will be back in action on Dec. 15 as they travel to Waco, Texas to face the Lady Bears of Baylor University. Game time for the road match is scheduled for 7:00 p.m. CT.

UTPA Sports Information