LONGVIEW, Texas - Playing in front of their home crowd for the first time this season, the LeTourneau University women's basketball team found the Sul Ross State Lobos too hot to handle in a 66-52 defeat in an American Southwest Conference matchup on Thursday, December 6th.

The loss drops the YellowJackets to 1-6 overall and 0-3 in American Southwest Conference play while the Lobos advanced to 3-4 on the season and 2-1 in conference action.
 
How it Happened:

• Sul Ross State scored the first nine points of the game, taking advantage of five LETU turnovers through their three-quarter court pressure.
• A layup from Olivia Eweni put a spark in the LETU offense as teammates Sha'Donnaver Young and Keauna Whitfield followed, stringing together six straight points to cut the Lobos lead to 13-10.
• Sul Ross would stay hot as SRSU responded with an 11-2 run to start the second quarter go up 29-15 and threatening to extend the margin before halftime.
• Trying to gain momentum before intermission, LETU found some rhythm as they put up ten points in the final five minutes of the period to trail 42-25 after 20 minutes of action.
• The third quarter proved to be the strongest of the game for LETU as they scored 14 points and cut the Lobo lead to as few as nine before conceding the final four points of the period to SRSU to go up 51-39 heading into the fourth quarter.
• In attempt to cut the Lobo lead down to single-digits once again, Alexandria Thorne got LeTourneau on the board with a jumper before seeing Sul Ross respond with a layup to trade buckets in the opening minute of the fourth.
• LETU would score eleven points while forcing nine turnovers in the final period, but it wouldn't be quite enough to halt the Sul Ross offense as the Lobo attack through the first three quarters proved to be too much to overcome.

 
Key Stats:

• Young led the YellowJackets with 14 points going 1-3 from the three-point line while Eweni followed close behind by putting up 12 points of her own.
• The Lobos used their defensive performance to their advantage as they thrived off 26 LETU turnovers which led to 29 points on the offensive end. The YellowJackets would force the Lobos into 21 turnovers but could only net six points off the opportunities.
• Falling back to old habits, LETU would finish the game with just a 25 percent (16-of-64) mark from the field as the Lobos shot just shy of 40 percent (26-for-66, 39.4 percent).

 
What's Next?
LeTourneau will stay at home this weekend as they face Howard Payne University in their fourth American Southwest Conference matchup on Saturday, December 8th at 1 p.m. HPU will enter Saturday's game with a 3-5 overall record and are coming off a 73-58 conference loss to Texas-Dallas.