March 6, 2006

Box Score

Southland Conference Player of the Year Terra Wallace scored 17 of her 32 points in the first half as second-seed UT-Arlington avenged a regular-season ending loss to McNeese State with a 71-43 victory in the opening round of the 2006 O'Reilly Auto Parts/Southland Conference Tournament at Texas Hall Monday.

Wallace, a junior from Round Rock who became the first UTA female to be named the league's outstanding player, finished the game hitting 11-of-23 field goals and broke the school's single-season scoring record of 532 points in 31 games set by Carolyn Smith during the 1977-78 season. Wallace now has 534 points in 28 games this season and moved into seventh place in career scoring with 1,183 points.

"(Terra) has been coming through for us all season long," said head coach Donna Capps. "We as a team, did exactly what we did last Friday, but we were able to get shots off and our players settled in and stopped rushing their shots."

"I just played as hard as I could," said Wallace. "Today I really tied to make good passes and just take good shots."

Seventh-seed McNeese State ends the season 13-15. The Cowgirls were led in scoring by Clarissa Clark with 11 and Shamika Stewart and Regina Spivey with 10 each.

Trailing 10-8 following a jumper by Marquita Williams with 13:11 left in the first half, UTA went on with a 14-1 run over the next 4:12 to take a 22-11 lead after a bucket by Tojjinay Thompson with 8:59 left in the half.

UTA continued to build the lead the rest of the half. A 9-1 run the final 4:07 of the half gave the Mavericks a 36-21 edge at halftime.

The Mavericks, ranked second in the nation in scoring defense at 51.0 points per game, held its fifth straight opponent under 50 points and its 13th of the season. UTA allowed just seven MSU field goals on 28 percent shooting (7-of-25) in the second half.

UTA will host the O'Reilly Auto Parts/Southland Conference Tournament semifinal versus Texas-San Antonio on Wednesday at 7 p.m. UTSA defeated Southeastern Louisiana in a first round game Monday, 61-46.

NOTES: The win gave UTA its sixth 20-win season in the program history and is the first time for back-to-back 20-win campaigns since 1976-78... The win was the eighth in the past nine tries over the Cowgirls... Tickets will be available at Texas Hall for Wednesday's semifinal game. Reserved tickets are $10 each while general admission tickets are 47. All UTA students are admitted free with valid student identification.