| SPORTS
| DECEMBER 2, 2005
Women’s Basketball
Women take game on road
Mavs hope for confidence, wins
playing New Mexico State, UT-El Paso away.
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| The Shorthorn: Mark Roberts |
| Junior guard Terra Wallace sinks
a free throw Thursday during practice in Texas Hall. The
Mavs will face New Mexico State on Saturday and UT-El
Paso on Sunday. |
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By Princess
McDowell
The Shorthorn staff
The Mavericks women’s basketball team hopes to gain more experience
together as it faces New Mexico State University and UT-El Paso
in season games this weekend.
The team travels to Las Cruces, N.M., to play the Aggies at 7 p.m.
Saturday and then returns to Texas to battle UT-El Paso at 3:05
p.m. Sunday at Don Haskins Center in El Paso.
Forward Tojjinay Thompson said the team has been progressing well
with the new players.
“Our cohesiveness is good,” she said. “We can
play together. Our freshmen have to work though and stop being nervous
during games.”
Thompson said that in order for the Mavs to finish the weekend with
two wins, it would have to play like it did in the victory over
La Salle earlier this season.
“We have to play intense defense and have people coming off
the bench mentally ready,” she said.
Head coach Donna Capps said the team’s biggest challenge this
weekend would not come from the opposing bench.
“Yes, they have bigger posts, but we can play with anyone
when we play right,” she said.
The Mavericks will face two teams with similar playing styles. New
Mexico State, led by Irma Kmitaite, is winless this season. The
junior guard averages a team-high 13.8 points and shoots 32 percent
from behind the arc.
UT-El Paso (3-2) is led by the sophomore duo of Izabela Piekarska
and Kasia Krezel. The tandem average 15 points per game, and Piekarska
leads the team in rebounding.
UT-El Paso has handed the Aggies two of the team’s five losses
this season by a combined 31 points. In the games, Kmitaite scored
more than 20 points in both losing efforts while Piekarska and Krezel
took turns posting close to or more than 20 points. New Mexico State
shot just 25 percent in the second meeting.
Capps said the team would mostly have to worry about itself and
make sure to run its offense and defense correctly.
“We just can’t beat ourselves,” she said.
After this weekend’s games, the Mavs will play four games
outside the central time zone before returning to Texas Hall on
Dec. 31. Thompson said she is excited about the upcoming road trip.
“It’s easy to play with the fans, music and dancers,
but it’s how you can play without the fans that gets you listening
more to what the coaches say,” she said. “You have to
get that [mentality] and feeling that it’s just us.”
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