KATY, Texas – McNeese Cowgirl basketball made an unexpected exit from the 2022 Southland Conference Women's Basketball Tournament on Friday when the Cowgirls, the No. 4 seed in the bracket, dropped a 90-63 decision to No. 5 UIW in the second round game.
 
The Cowgirls end their season 13-15 after not given much hope by outsiders prior to the season.
 
"You look at our season," said first-year head coach Lynn Kennedy. "The expectations (from the outside) were pretty low for our team and our program this year. We were picked sixth and finished fourth. To make a lot of firsts and get back to that tradition that we've talked about as a team, I think that says a lot about our team."
 
Despite having to overcome numerous obstacles in the game, the Cowgirls never quit and battled to the final horn.
 
"I think we learned a lot out there today," said Kennedy. "As a young team, that's all you can ask is to not quit in a game like this and to keep playing hard. And we did. We won the fourth quarter but winning one quarter is not going to win you a game.
 
"I give a lot of credit to UIW. The came in and played extremely well today. It's the best I've seen them play all year. The first quarter kind of got us back on our heels both offensively and defensively, but I think a lot of this game goes to them and the way that they played."
 
McNeese led 6-4 early before things turned sluggish with UIW reeling in offensive rebounds with scores and turning turnovers into points.
 
After Le'Shenae Stubblefield, who led the Cowgirls with 15 points, hit a couple of free throws to put McNeese up 6-4 just 2 ½ minutes into the game, UIW went on an 18-3 run to build a 21-9 lead at the three-minute mark. Eight of those 21 were second chance opportunities.
 
"I thought offensively, we started out fine, but it was defensively in the rebounding," said Kennedy. "We gave up four offensive rebounds to start the game and so what happened was I thought their confidence went up because they got the offensive boards. So instead of us having a 12-2 lead, it was 6-6. And then we had a couple of bad rotations on some threes.
 
"We had probably out worst game of the year at the worst possible time. It's disappointing for us because we expected to come in here and win (the game) and win the tournament. But as a young team, we have to grow and learn from that."
 
McNeese trailed 26-12 at the end of the first quarter behind just 4 of 16 shooting while UIW connected on 11 of 18 in the stanza and outscored the Cowgirls 10-0 in second chance opportunities.
 
The Cardinals held a 46-27 lead at the break and grew the gap to 70-39 at the end of the third quarter before the Cowgirls outscored UIW 24-20 in the final period.
 
Kaili Chamberlin scored 10 points as the only other Cowgirl in double-figures. UIW was led by Destiny Terrell's 24 points to go along with 19 rebounds. She was followed by Jaaucklyn Moore with 14, Chloe Storer 12 and Tiana Gardner with 10.
 
McNeese hit 20 of 66 from the field for 30 percent, 4 for 28 from behind the arc for 14 percent and 19 of 23 at the free throw line for 83 percent. UIW connected on 30 of 65 for 46 percent shooting, 2 of 14 for 14 percent from long range and 28 of 39 at the line for 72 percent.
 
UIW scored a total of 54 points off turnovers and on second chance opportunities and outscored McNeese 28-19 at the line.
 
"We'll take this loss into the offseason and let it motivate us to get better as a team and individually," said Desirae Hansen.
 
"On and off the court," said Stubblefield. "Definite motivation going into the summer and offseason."