WARNER—Cheyanne Crain came off the bench to score 24 points and De'Asia Reid scoring inside with 21 points and clearing the boards led the Connors State Cowgirls to a 69-58 victory over Frank Phillips College Friday to close out their first semester of play at Melvin Self Field House.
The Cowgirls will take a 14-2 record into the Christmas break and will return on January 6th to open Oklahoma Collegiate Athletic Conference play against Seminole State College
"I thought we didn't play very good first half discipline defense," said Coach Jamie Fisher. "The second half it was great discipline defense. We made plays when we had too.
"Once we started getting a lot of paint touches with (De'Asia) Reid, (Isabel) Gonzalez and (Mikayla) Maxwell, then we started feeding the beast (inside game) is what we call it.
"That opened up are perimeter game, especially Crain from the outside. And, that opened up our transition game, also. They couldn't stay with our speed," adding "We were just too athletic for them," said Fisher.
Connors and Frank Phillips battled to 9-9 draw at the end of the first quarter with the Lady Plainsmen holding a 28-26 lead at the half.
The game was tied two more times in the third quarter, the last at 37-all with 4:36 remaining. The Cowgirls then went on a 7-0 run on a bucket and trey by Crain, followed by another two-pointer by Tateum Jones, who finished with 11 points.
Fisher gave much of the success for the Cowgirls performance against the Lady Plainsmen to Jones.
"The player that doesn't get a lot of credit that doesn't show up on the score sheet and in the paper is Tateum," said Fisher. "She Ds (defense) people up, and pushes the ball up the floor. She runs the team. Tateum does a great job for us. I am really proud of her."
Frank Phillips was never able to recover as Connors surged to an 11-point lead 65-54 with 1:34 remaining as its tenacious defensive play shut down the Lady Plainsmen in the final quarter and a half.
Amaya Jones led the Frank Phillips scoring with 21 points with teammate Alexys Grice scoring 16 in the loss.
The Cowgirls drained four treys in the game, all by Crain, while Connors connected on 9-of-16 at the line. Frank Phillips had six threes and was 6-of-8 at the charity stripe.
CONNORS STATE 69, FRANK PHILLIPS COLLEGE 58
Frank Phillips 9 19 12 18—58
Connors State 11 15 18 25—69
Frank Phillips (6-8)—Johns 21, Grice 16, Moreno 9, Williams 8, Jackson 2, Grange 2.
Connors State (15-2)—Crain 24, Reid 21, Jones 11, Gonzalez 4, Wright 4,Taylor 3, Maxwell 2.