Box Score ODESSA, Texas (Feb. 28, 2015) – Whether the cause was the long road trip or travel delays or just typical late-season fatigue, Oklahoma Christian wasn't itself on Saturday afternoon in the Falcon Dome against Texas-Permian Basin.

Hoping to finish the basketball season strong, OC jumped to an early lead but a motivated UTPB squad began hitting shots and pulled away for a 70-56 win over the Lady Eagles.

Sophomore McKenzie Stanford scored 17 points and junior Sydney Hill added 15 points for OC (12-14, 9-9 Heartland Conference), which was seeking to finish .500 overall and post a winning league record after starting the season 3-9 overall and 0-4 in conference play.

UTPB (15-11, 9-9), meanwhile, needed a win to qualify for the four-team Heartland postseason (for which OC wasn't eligible) and the Falcons played like a desperate team. With the win, UTPB finished in a four-way tie for fourth with OC, St. Edward's (Texas) and Texas A&M International in the NCAA Division II league.

"They got beat the other night, which they probably shouldn't of, so I knew they were going to come out on fire and ready to prove that they were fighting to get into the conference tournament," OC coach Stephanie Findley said of the Falcons. "You knew they were going to come ready to play.

"We were happy that we won that one the other night (at St. Edward's) and maybe were still celebrating that a little bit. But, also, it's a long bus ride. You've got to be able to mentally get through the bus lag and fight through. We looked good the first few minutes and then the bottom just fell out."

Because of snowy, icy road conditions, the Lady Eagles didn't arrive at the Falcon Dome until about 45 minutes before tipoff, substantially reducing their typical pregame warmup time. It didn't seem to matter early, as 3-pointers by senior Kaitlyn Morris and Hill during the first three minutes staked OC to an 8-2 lead.

OC led 12-7 after a layup by Aisha Martin at the 13:59 mark, but then UTPB began hitting shots. Valerie Barriga canned a 3-pointer and Giselle Loya followed with another to give the Falcons their first lead at 13-12 with 13:04 left in the first half.

The Lady Eagles took their last lead at 16-15 on a basket by another senior, Skyler Newberry, at the 12:24 mark, but OC managed only nine points the rest of the half, allowing UTPB to pull away. Loya ended the half with a buzzer-beating 3-pointer to give the Falcons a 40-25 lead.

The Falcons built their lead to as many as 23 points in the second half before OC closed the game on a 12-3 run to make the final margin more respectable.

"We were just a step slow," Findley said. "Our passes were too early or too late, just about every time we threw the ball to somebody. You could just tell it was mental sluggishness we were trying to fight through."

Myangel Johnson came off the bench to lead UTPB with 20 points on 9-of-12 shooting. Brianna Jones scored 16 while Loya added 12 points. The Falcons outrebounded OC 44-34 and had two players reach double figures in that category – Danielle Wilson had 13 (to go with eight points) and Barriga with 10 (to go with nine points).

It was the final game for Newberry, Morris and fellow senior Makenzie Brown. Newberry finished with six points and a team-high seven rebounds, while Morris had three points, a rebound, an assist and a steal and Brown had three rebounds, an assist and a blocked shot but didn't score. A fourth OC senior, Logan McKee, has been out since December because of a knee injury.

Findley said she was proud of the way her team rallied this season after the slow start.

"You want every season to be playing your best toward the end and we feel like that's what we've done," Findley said. "We wish we could go into postseason, but we're not, so you take that feel-good and that improvement into next season and hopefully we can pick up where we left off. We started off a little slow this season. We don't want to start like that next season. We hope we can keep this winning trend going next season."