Islanders Secure Their Winning Streak at Homecoming
Senior Makinna Serrata, senior Diamond Wraggs, junior Alecia Westbrook, sophomore Violeta Verano, and sophomore Paige Allen are playing defense to prevent Northwestern State from scoring.
The Texas A&M-Corpus Christi women’s basketball program defeated Northwestern State at the American Bank Center for their Saturday Homecoming game with a score of 65-50 on Feb. 19.
The Islanders are standing in first-place in the Southland Conference with 9–1 and 17-1 overall. They’re currently on a streak of winning six games back to back and have improved their home winning streak to 13-0.
In the first quarter, the Islanders were taking the lead by 9-7. They managed to end the first quarter with a lead of 21-17 with a three-pointer made by sophomore Violeta Verana and lay-ups made by senior Diamond Wraggs and junior Alecia Westbrook.
“We came out strong in the first half,” Westbrook said. “So we just had to go into the locker room, talk about what we were doing wrong and just regroup and lock in.”
Westbrook, the forward/center for the Islanders, ranked 26th in the nation for her rebounds, which allowed her to make it her 34th double-digit in her career by securing 11 rebounds against the Lady Demons.
“Offensively we didn’t execute crisply in the first half, second half… we made some adjustments,” said Head Coach Royce Chadwick. “Our players did a great job of adjusting to an offense that had some relatively new wrinkles in it and they made it work”.
TAMU-CC was battling in the second quarter as Northwestern State was leading 24-23, and eventually the Islanders got their head in the game to make the score 49-42 by the end of the third quarter.
“We came out of the third quarter and really set the tone and did some good things in that quarter to try and get the momentum back on our side,” Chadwick said. “But late February games are always gritty. You got to grind and battle, and that’s exactly what happened today.”
Three student-athletes scored in double figures for the Islanders. Westbrook led the team with 11 rebounds and scored 15 points. Senior Makinna Serrata scored 16 points which makes it her 28th double-digit scoring in her career and 17th for this season alone. Sophomore Violeta Verano scored 11 points along with achieving five rebounds and five assists.
Overall, TAMU-CC ended the game with nine steals, 43 rebounds, 13 turnovers, and a field goal percentage of .381.
The Islanders will be traveling to Lake Charles on Feb. 24 to face McNeese at 5 p.m. Go Islanders!
Gabriella Ruiz is a senior Media Arts major with a focus in Media Studies and a minor in Digital Journalism. She has been working with Island Waves since...
