Box Score FRISCO, TEXAS – A magical ride for a magical team may have finally met its end on Saturday night after UT Tyler fell to Texas A&M-Commerce by a score of 58-52. With the loss, the Patriots will now wait and see if they earned an at-large bid into the NCAA Tournament after the brackets get released on Sunday evening.
 
It took nearly three minutes for either team to score as both teams fought off the nerves and the strong defense from both programs. Liah Davis opened the scoring with a layup, and Destini Whitehead added a layup of her own to give the Patriots an early 4-2 lead.
 
Lovisa Hevinder jumped into the scoring with a big three pointer right past the halfway point of the quarter, and a made jumper from Davis stretched the lead to five. Tina Machalova jumped in on the scoring herself in the final minute of the period, answering a Lions three pointer with one of her own.
 
The second quarter saw Texas A&M-Commerce come up with a late rally to take the halftime lead. After both programs traded buckets throughout the first 8:25 of the period, the Lions went on a 9-1 run over the final 1:35 of the half that was capped off by a buzzer beating three pointer to give the Lions the lead.
 
UT Tyler's defense gave the Lions fits the entire first half, and held them to just 34.6% shooting from the floor and just 21.4% from beyond the arc. The Patriots forced eight turnovers and came away with five steals while holding the number one scoring offense in the LSC to just 26 points.
 
After two made free throws coming out of the break, Texas A&M-Commerce stretched their lead out to five, their largest of the game so far. The Patriots needed the response, and got it in the form of a 14-2 run over the next 5:26 of game time to give them a seven point cushion.
 
Whitehead pitched in seven points to the run, including a huge and one that gave the Patriots the lead. Hevinder nailed another three to answer the only points of the run from the Lions, and Machalova closed the run with four points of her own.
 
Texas A&M-Commerce would not go down easily, answering the big Patriots run with an 8-3 run of their own to cut the lead to just two with 10 minutes remaining.
 
Over the first six minutes of the fourth quarter, the Patriots held the Lions to just three made field goals, but the free throw line was where the damage was done. A 14-4 run with seven points coming from the charity stripe gave Texas A&M-Commerce the edge by eight with 4:09 remaining.
 
UT Tyler responded with a 7-2 run to cut the lead down to three points with just 1:14 remaining, but a pair of missed opportunities saw the Lions sneak away with the victory.
 
Three Patriots scored in double figures on the night, and Liah Davis led the way in what could potentially be her final collegiate game. Davis had a night that stuffed the stat sheet, scoring 15 points and adding in eight rebounds, four assists, two blocks, and a steal.
 
Destini Whitehead and Tina Machalova added in 13 and 11 points respectively, and the pair combined for six rebounds and four steals.
 
QUOTABLE
 
Head Coach Rebecca Alvidrez on her team battling in the fourth quarter and the resilience of the program, "Our girls battled. Our locker room knows what we went through. For us to battle without all of our bullets, I'm proud of them. We are going to continue to grow this and we are going to be better next year."
 
On a year that produced a 19-9 season and a 10-5 LSC record in the first year of Division II and building to the future, "Your character and culture exposes itself at the end of the year. Our girls wanted this, they wanted to fight. I do believe that our culture showed a lot. I am excited about the growth and the foundation moving forward."
 
Liah Davis on her success in the paint, "Offensively I felt like most of the time when I am more aggressive, it works. I feel like it is easier to score that way and I knew I had to do that going into this game."
 
Destini Whitehead on dealing with the pressure from Texas A&M-Commerce, "It was nothing new, but there's no reason to be scared. Once I got it past half court, I just wanted to find my teammates and find Liah."
 
THE WAITING GAME
 
Now that the Patriots LSC Tournament run has come to a close, they will wait it out in anticipation of potentially receiving an at-large bid into the NCAA Tournament. The Patriots were ranked in both of the first two NCAA South Central Regional Rankings before slipping out of the top 10 in the final release of the rankings on Wednesday afternoon.
 
UT Tyler will hope to be one of eight teams that are selected into the NCAA South Central Regional Tournament on Sunday night. Each winner of the RMAC and LSC Postseason Tournament will receive an automatic bid into the regional, and the remaining six positions will be filled by at-large bids going to the six next highest ranked teams.
 
The NCAA Division II Women's Basketball Tournament Selection Show will be steamed live on NCAA.com at 9 p.m. central time on Sunday evening.