LONGVIEW, Texas – On a day in which senior
Savannah Cummings played her final game inside of Solheim Arena, the LeTourneau University women's basketball team would build a 14-point third quarter lead and never trail in a 62-55 win over Belhaven University inside of Solheim Arena on Saturday, February 10th.
LETU picks up their fifth win of the year to move to 5-18 overall and 2-14 in the American Southwest Conference while the Blazers fell to 3-20 overall and 3-13 in the ASC.
It would take overcoming a poor shooting effort to get the victory as the YellowJackets shot just 19-of-69 (27.5 percent) from the field, but hit six three's and had an 18-for-23 (78.3 percent) performance from the charity stripe to make up for it. Belhaven would utilize the paint, outscoring LeTourneau 30-16, but could not overcome a 50-35 advantage on the glass for LETU.
Cummings would record one of two double-doubles by LeTourneau players on the day, finishing with 12 points and 11 rebounds while sophomore
Alexandria Thorne had 13 points and 10 rebounds. Junior
Jaila Leaven led all players with 20 points in the game and had eight rebounds to go with three assists.
The YellowJackets led from the get-go, scoring the first seven points of the game while holding BU scoreless for the opening 3:22 of the game before a Kelsey Brown triple put the score at 7-4 in favor of LETU. A pair of Leaven free throws brought the score to 9-3 heading into the back end of the first quarter as six of the next eight points would be scored by LeTourneau to open up a 15-5 lead with 2:36 left in the quarter. Belhaven would get a pair of buckets in the final minutes of the quarter, but would see
Ashley Reed send in a three to offset the scoring as the YellowJackets doubled up the Blazers 18-9 after one.
Scoring would be an issue for both squads to open up the second quarter as a total of just seven points would be scored in the opening five minutes of the quarter which would see LeTourneau hold a 21-13 lead with under five minutes left in the first half. Each team would then go on a 5-0 run to keep the YellowJacket lead at eight before the Blazers would close the gap to 28-25 at intermission with Aaliyaha Thornton scoring the final four points of the half for Belhaven.
The Blazers would pull within one on the opening basket of the second half with 8:52 remaining in the third quarter, but Reed would come through for LETU with another three before Thorne and Leaven each hit shots to spark a 9-0 YellowJacket run to get the lead back to double-digits. With the LETU lead still at 10 points heading into the final minutes of the third quarter, LeTourneau would get buckets from Cummings and
Keauna Whitfield to extend the lead to 14 points and appear to be pulling away from the Blazers. It would be Belhaven however that would close out the quarter strong by scoring seven of the final eight points to close the gap to 46-38 in favor of LETU heading to the fourth.
LeTourneau would have to fend off multiple Belhaven challenges in the fourth quarter as the lead would never grow to more than nine in the final period of play with BU managing to tie the game at 52-52 with 4:52 remaining. Five straight points for the YellowJackets would put an end to the Blazer threat as Belhaven would score just one point over the next 4:46 before adding a final jumper in the closing seconds with the outcome already decided as LETU would claim the seven point victory.
The final week of the season for the YellowJackets will come on the road as LeTourneau will head down Highway 80 on Monday evening to take on the Tigers of East Texas Baptist University at 5:30 p.m. in what will be the first of two games next week. LETU will close out the season at Texas-Dallas on Thursday evening with tip-off also scheduled for 5:30 p.m.
