LAWTON – A late comeback effort fell short in a game that featured 14 lead changes and 11 ties as Cameron would fall 77-74 to number-10 Tarleton State on Saturday night. Cameron gave themselves a shot at the end of the night to tie the contest at the buzzer but a Deondre Ray three-pointer would bounce off the rim.   

With the loss to the Texans, the Aggies have dropped their last three in a row and will fall to 9-7 overall and 1-3 in the Lone Star Conference, Tarleton State will move to 14-2 and 2-2 in league play.

"Our effort all night was great and the guys played their butts off," said head coach Nate Gamet. "To take a ranked team to 29 of 32 from the free throw line to beat us by three, and we had probably our worst three-pointing shooting on the year and only lose by three, that says we are guarding something."

"We can't dwell on the loss. We are going to win some of these close ones and lose some. They made a few more plays than us at the end to do it, but our guys played about as well as I could have asked them to. We just have to stay with the course. Our team has to understand, put out that type of effort, and duplicate this game most nights. If we clean up things here and there we are going to come out on top."

Desmond Henry gave the Aggies a season high 23 points to lead all scorers and KeDorian Sullivan added 16. Matthew Don led CU with six rebounds and came away with eight points.   

The Aggies would be outrebounded by five by Tarleton State, who pulled down 32. Cameron shot 43.8 percent from the field and only went 1-13 from the arc; Tarleton State shot 40.8 on their side of the floor.

The Texans had four players in double-figures with TaShawn Mabry leading his squad with 17 points.

The first half proved to be tightly contested with five lead changes and neither team holding more than a six point advantage. Cameron's inside presence guided them to 16 points, eight more than the Texans with the Aggies using a pair of free throws to take a slim 29-28 at the intermission. Sullivan paced CU early with seven points while the Aggies shot 41.7 percent from the field; Tarleton State would go 33.3 percent on their end of the court with Nosa Ebomwonyi having 10.

The on court battle continued into the second half and neither program held more than a two possession lead.  Tarleton State would strike first and after a 59-57 Aggie lead, TSU pulled away after a 9-0 run to lead by seven with 3:43 left in the game. Cameron pushed the issue with under a minute and cut the Tarleton advantage to a point with 45 seconds left off of three free throws and a Jackson steal and layup. The game ended at the line and Tarleton would hit four in a row to ice the contest for their 14th win of the season.

Cameron will remain at home on Wednesday to host Texas A&M-Kingsville at 7:30 p.m.