LAREDO, Texas (Dec. 12, 2020) –
Kendra Levings and
Kendall Blackburn couldn't miss in the first quarter and
Maddison Collyer Ingraham sizzled in the second half for Oklahoma Christian on Saturday afternoon at Texas A&M International.
The trio combined with
Amaya Buchanan – who posted a career-best scoring outing – to lift the Lady Eagles to an 85-67 romp at the Kinesiology and Convocation Building, giving OC a split of its season-opening two-game basketball series against the Dustdevils.
OC shot a healthy 58.8 percent (30 of 51) from the field, including 55.6 percent (10 of 18) from 3-point range, and as a result, the Lady Eagles never trailed and held a double-digit lead for the final 35½ minutes against a TAMIU squad that recorded exhibition road wins over NCAA Division I foes Texas A&M-Corpus Christi and Weber State. The shooting percentage was the best for an OC team since the Addy Clift-led Lady Eagles shot 59.0 percent in a 104-53 win over St. Mary's (Texas) on Jan. 19, 2019.
Ingraham, a senior point guard from Harrah, Okla., was scoreless at halftime but matched her career scoring high with 23 points – hitting 7 of 11 shots, including all four of her 3-point attempts – to go with eight assists. Her biggest shot was a 3-pointer from NBA range at the third-quarter buzzer that banked high off the backboard and went in, extending OC's lead to 66-51.
Buchanan, a sophomore from Houston, came off the bench to score 13 points in only 11 minutes, going 6 of 8 from the field, and grabbed five rebounds. Levings and Blackburn each scored 10 first-quarter points and finished with 13 and 12, respectively. Levings also had four steals.
OC (1-1, 1-1 Lone Star Conference) shot a nearly unfathomable 84.6 percent from the field in the first quarter, going 11 of 13. The Lady Eagles hit their first six shots, not missing until the 3:52 mark, and led 31-9 by the end of the quarter Two buckets by Buchanan early in the second quarter boosted the lead to 35-12.
The rest of the game followed a familiar pattern – TAMIU (1-1, 1-1) would chip into the lead, then OC would push it back out. OC led 42-28 at halftime before the Dustdevils rallied to within 45-35 with a 7-0 run, capped by a basket by Patrycja Jaworska with 6:15 left in the third quarter. But Blackburn started a 8-2 spurt for OC with a basket that rebuild the Lady Eagles' lead to 16 points.
TAMIU again cut the margin to 10 at 61-51 on a basket by Jazmine Covington with 37 seconds left in the third quarter, but
Emma Epperly hit two free throws before Ingraham's banked-in 3-pointer to end the quarter. The Dustdevils came no closer than 12 points in the fourth quarter.
Nicole Heyn led TAMIU with 17 points while Jaworska added 15 and six assists and Covington scored 12 points (on 4-of-9 3-point shooting). The Dustdevils shot 37.7 percent (20 of 53) from the field.
Freshman
Brooklin Bain added nine points and five rebounds for OC, while senior
Tyra Peck had seven points and a team-high seven rebounds as OC won the rebounding battle 27-20. During the two-game series at TAMIU, Ingraham had 13 assists, moving her past Liz Phillips (397 from 1980-83) into 10th place on OC's career list in that statistical category with 408.
OC played most of the game without its top returning scorer,
Katie Mayo, who went down hard midway through the first quarter and didn't return to the game. She finished with two points.
OC will host defending LSC champion Lubbock Christian (Texas) on Friday and Saturday.
