Lady Panthers Defeat A&M Kingsville in Exhibition

Thursday, November 05, 2009 11:28 PM

Prairie View, TX—Before a packed house at the William J. Nicks Gymnasium, the Prairie View A&M Lady Panthers dominated their exhibition game against overmatched Texas A&M-Kingsville 87-52 Thursday night.

“I think the girls came out intense and ready to play,” said assistant coach Toyelle Wilson. “They had been practicing against each other for the past few months, so they were nagging to play against other competition.”

The Lady Panthers did come out intense, racing out to a 12-2 lead behind the hot early hand of Gaati Werema, the reigning SWAC Player of the Year. The Javelinas quickly cut the deficit down to 14-9 before the Lady Panthers used a 17-3 run to blow the game wide open behind aggressive defense and opportunistic offense. The run’s most exciting moment featured guard Candice Thomas’ breakaway steal and layup that built the Prairie View lead to 28-10 with 9:35 remaining. The Lady Panthers took a 45-25 lead into halftime.

“I think we brought it in the first half,” said Werema. “In the second half, we let up some but we regained our intensity and it showed in the final five minutes.”

After playing relatively even with Texas A&M-Kingsville for most of the first 10 minutes of the second half, Prairie View regained their aggressive edge behind breakaway steals from Thomas as well as newcomer Courtney Larsen. By the end of the game, the Lady Panthers grew the advantage to 35 points and showed what they hope is a taste of things to come this season.

“Overall I think we did really well. We showed we still have some things to work on and I think we will bounce back next week for our first set of games in California,” Wilson added.

Werema led all scorers with 22 points to go along with 10 rebounds, good for a double-double.  Latara Darrett, a transfer from Baylor, played strong in her debut for the Lady Panthers with 20 points and 3 rebounds while Candice Thomas supplied 8 points and 4 assists.

The Panther begin the regular season play next week with a pair of games against Long Beach State (Friday, November 13) and Cal-State Northridge (Sunday, November 15).

Picture taken by Richard White