Final Stats

By Michael Eldridge | @DFWSportsMike

HOUSTON - UT Arlington opened up its two-game road trip on a positive, downing Houston Baptist 64-40 at Sharp Gym on Saturday.

The Lady Mavericks (4-5) used a balanced attack against the Huskies and featured three in double digits. Amara Wainwright led the way with 13 points, while Rebekah VanDijk earned her second double-double of the season with 10 points and a game-high 11 rebounds. Cierra Johnson finished with 12 points and four steals.

UTA's defense helped the Lady Mavs build up a double-digit lead going into the break, turning Houston Baptist over six times during a six-minute stretch of the second quarter. Houston Baptist rallied to bring the game back within six midway through the third before the Lady Mavs clamped down once again on the defensive end.

Back-to-back 3-pointers coming from Wainwright and LaShanda Green left no doubt in the contest as UTA's lead reached 20 points with under three left in the game.

The Lady Mavericks finished with a 44.2 percent field-goal percentage, its second best effort on the road this season. Wainwright and Green each knocked down two 3-pointers - UTA had just five overall.

The 40 points for Houston Baptist (4-5) was its season low as the Huskies shot just 16-for-44 from the floor. Monet Neal was a brightspot for the home team, finishing with a game-high 18 points on 7-of-11 shooting.

Turning point
Leading 16-15 after a back-and-forth opening quarter, UTA clamped down on the defensive end and turned HBU over six times in the first six minutes to spark a 15-0 run. The Huskies did not score a point in the quarter until a pair of free throws with less than three minutes left, and knocked down their first field goal with 2:15 to go.

Key Stats
For the fourth time this season, UTA's defense held its opponent to a season low in scoring. HBU's previous low was 57 against New Mexico on Nov. 13. … UTA held HBU to just one field goal in the second quarter - the performance was UTA's best this season. ... UTA outscored HBU 31-13 in points off turnovers.

Notable
UTA is 6-1 against Houston Baptist and has won the last two. The win improved UTA's record to 3-1 when playing on the road versus the Huskies. UTA ended its play against the Southland Conference, going 2-1. … Wainwright entered with the sixth best 3-point percentage in Division I, she was 2-5 from beyond the arc in the contest.

Up next
UTA closes out nonconference play against former Southland Conference, and briefly WAC, rival UTSA in San Antonio on Monday night at 7 p.m. It is the second consecutive year the teams meet in nonconference play. UTSA has won the last four, however, UTA holds a 30-28 series advantage.

Quotable
UTA coach Krista Gerlich on the team's effort:
"I was glad to see our kids come together and play as a team. They played with more energy and consistency throughout the four quarters. They really adjusted well to what we were asking them to do defensively. We played the entire second, third and fourth in zone, and we don't do that very often, but they did what we asked them to do and did it well."

Gerlich on being able to sustain HBU's third-quarter attack:
"We have to learn how to do that. You have to weather the storm and that is a sign of maturity on our part. The kids figured it out and stopped the bleeding instead of just unraveling."

Gerlich on the defensive play and Johnson as its leader:
"We have used the 1-3-1 sparingly and Cierra does such a great job at the top of it because she is so long and gets deflections, she really caused issues for them. It was nice to see us use our defense to get our offense going on the front of it. It was a great defensive effort out there, our kids were really focused on being prideful in making sure we held them to a low-scoring output, because that was one of our goals."