DENTON, Texas –
Jamie Bonnarens led the Cameron women's basketball team in a fourth quarter come back as they took down Texas Woman's in overtime, 71-65, in CU's final home game of the season.
Bonnarens led all scorers with 22 points, going 8-16 from the field and 4-8 from the perimeter; she also grabbed nine rebounds. Her performance on Thursday was the 12th time this season that she eclipsed the 20 point mark.
Lejha Smith chipped in her ninth double-double of the season with 13 points and 11 rebounds, while
Ava Battese had 12 points, making a trio of three pointers, and
Amaka Nwakamma had 10 points.
Cameron shot just 36.5 percent from the field, and went 8-24 from the perimeter, but they did make 70.8 percent from the free throw line and scoring 18 points off of TWU turnovers.
Bri'anna Gray led TWO with 21 points, as Alexis Nezianya had a 17 point, 13 rebound double-double. The home team scored 36 of their 65 points in the paint.
Neither team scored through the first two minutes of play, as the Aggies were first to get on the board with a jumper from Bonnarens. The scoring was limited in the first quarter as the Pioneers held the slight 10-9 lead after the first 10 minutes of play.
In the second quarter, Cameron started it off with a free throw to tie the game, but then TWU used a 9-2 to build up a seven point leads 4 minutes into the quarter. Texas Woman's maintained the lead through the final minutes of the half, but before the clock hit zero, Smith hit a pair of free throws to narrow the deficit to three, with the home team leading 30-27.
Bonnarens had 11 points in the first half, while Gray led TWU with 10 points. The Aggies shot just 35 percent from the field while going 2-11 from the perimeter in the first 20 minutes of play. They also trailed in the rebounding battle 21-15.
Cameron started out the second half strong, going on an 8-0 run to open the quarter. The two teams battled back and forth and then TWU went on a six point run of their own to tie the game at 38 points. CU went cold shooting down the stretch and the Pioneers took a 45-40 lead into the final quarter.
The Pioneers held an eight point lead multiple times to start the fourth, but Cameron erased that with a seven point run to put the score at 55-54 with just two minutes to play. After trading buckets, the Aggies were down two points with just 20 second to play and the ball. After almost turning the ball over on a jump ball, Nwakamma drove the lane and got blocked out of bounds with just seconds to play. Head coach
Emma Andrews then called the perfect in-bounds play as Nwakammma found a wide open Smith under the basket to tie the game and force overtime.
The Aggies controlled the extra time, outscoring TWU 13-7, while hitting both of their three pointers and going 7-8 from the free throw line to win 71-65.
Cameron finishes up the regular season with a 13-15 overall record and an 11-9 Lone Star Conference mark, while Texas Woman's is now 10-15 overall and 7-12 in league play; they face Midwestern State in their regular season finale on Saturday.
The Aggies will next play in the first round of the LSC Championships on Thursday, March 1 with the opponent and time to be determined. As of now, they would play Texas A&M-Commerce in the opening round of the tournament.