Jan. 20, 2010

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By Josh Bowe for utamavs.com

ARLINGTON - Texas - During the second half on Wednesday night, Tamara Simmons did her best Meghan Nelson impersonation.

The junior guard scored 17 of her 19 points after the intermission, including the game sealing steal and lay-up as UTA picked up its second conference win 85-79 against Stephen F. Austin.

Senior guard Meghan Nelson scored a career high 33 points as well, with 19 of those points coming in the first half. Simmons said she took what Nelson was doing that half and applied it to her game in the second half.

"I just felt like in the second half I didn't need to rely on my 3 point shot," Simmons said. "Just play aggressive but be smart."

Simmons and Nelson paraded their way down the lane at will against the SFA defense. The two combined to shoot 21-for-33 with a majority of those shots coming in the paint.

"That's the type of player I am anyways," Nelson said. "I was just taking what they gave me."

The Mavericks needed everyone of Nelson's 19 first half points. After taking a 17-12 lead, SFA stormed back to go on a 24-9 run to take a 10 point lead.

UTA responded before half, applying a full court press to force SFA into careless turnovers, only trailing 43-40 at half.

"We turned our defense up," coach Samantha Morrow said. "We've got to create better opportunities with our defense and that's what it was at the end of the half."

The second half seemed to start off the opposite however. SFA scored the first eight points of the half to take their largest lead of 51-40.

That's when Simmons went to work. Driving to the hole instead of settling for jumpers, Simmons finished the half 8-for-10 as UTA shot 51 percent in the half.

"She's got to do that, she's got to come like that everyday," Morrow said.

While Simmons went to work on the offensive end, freshman forward Donna Dike cleaned the glass practically spotless.

Dike collected 12 rebounds, six offensive, including all the big ones down the stretch as SFA tried to rally the last two minutes.

Ironically, Simmons finest play of the night came on the defensive end. With UTA leading by four at 83-79 with 14 seconds left, Simmons stepped into the passing lane and stole the ball while converting down at the other end.

"The girl from the other team kept penetrating the same gap, so I thought I can't let her get the three point shot," Simmons said. "She just happened to turn the ball over and I happened to be in the right place at the right time."

With the way UTA has followed its wins with sub par efforts, Morrow wants the team to use this to find some consistency. While time will tell if that happens, Morrow knows her teams identity was shown in true form.

"We just didn't quit, they refused to lose," Morrow said. "That's a testimony to the type of people they are.

"They aren't losers, they're winners."