KATY, Texas— McNeese women's basketball season came to an end here Friday at the Southland Conference but the Cowgirls didn't go down without a fight in their 77-63 second round loss to No. 3 seed Stephen F. Austin.
 
McNeese ends its season with a 14-17 record under first year head coach Kacie Cryer.
 
"You have to give credit to Stephen F. Austin for coming out and getting to the boards and we talked about that before the game of how important rebounding would be in the game," said head coach Kacie Cryer.
 
Seniors Victoria Rachal, Amber Donnes and Hannah Cupit concluded their careers here Friday. Rachal led McNeese in scoring with 23 points, Donnes had 16 points and ends her career with 1,024 career points. Donnes is the 16^th Cowgirl to score 1,000 career points. Freshman Caitlin Davis chipped in with 10. Junior Frederica Haywood led all players with 15 rebounds.
 
McNeese got off to a slow start here Friday the shots that were going in on Thursday, weren't falling today as the Cowgirls trailed 23-7 after the first quarter.
 
With SFA leading 11-7, the Ladyjacks went on a 15-0 run to take a 26-7 lead three minutes into the game. The Cowgirls settled down in the second quarter and did make a little run when Caitlin Davis scored five straight points but the potent SFA offense went into the half with a 42-20 lead.
 
McNeese shot 29.6 percent from the field and missed its only two free throw attempts. What compounded the poor shooting is Cowgirl leading scorers Victoria Rachal and Amber Donnes picked up three first half fouls.
 
Southland Conference player of the year, SFA's Taylor Ross had 14 points at the half on 6 of 9 from the field. The Cowgirls couldn't find an answer to stop her.
 
After starting off cold, McNeese opened the third quarter by making six of its first nine shots and made good on two old fashion three-point plays and a Donnes three-pointer.
 
The Cowgirls made a comeback and cut the lead to eight points with two minutes left in the game after Rachal made two free throws then a layup.
 
Stephen F. Austin would outscore McNeese 9-3 the rest of the way with most of those points coming from the free throw line.
 
"On the defensive end, we didn't communicate like we needed to but once we settled down we did a much better job. You can't ask much more of these kids, we kept battling and cut it to single digits. I'm really proud of this team and seniors (Rachal, Donnes, Cupit) for what they have done for this program," Cryer said.