LUBBOCK, TEXAS - #24 UT Tyler women's basketball picked up their most dramatic win of the season as Tina Machalova dropped in a late layup to give the Patriots their 16^th straight win and a 12-0 start to the LSC slate.
 
The Patriots held the Lady Chaps scoreless over the last 2:14 of the contest while getting a layup from Ella Bradley and Machalova to complete a 57-56 win in the Patriots first ever trip to Lubbock.
 
For the contest, the Patriots made one more field goal than the Lady Chaps and it proved to be the ultimate difference in a game that was nearly even statistically.
 
Lubbock Christian got ahead in the early going as they rolled out to a 9-2 lead and then a 14-5 lead over the first 7:30 of the first quarter. The Patriots battled their way back with three straight points from Frances King to make it 14-8 at the end of one.
 
King would knock down another jumper early in the second quarter to keep pace with the Lady Chaps before Destini Whitehead sparked a 5-2 run by herself to pull the Patriots within three. The Patriots then began chipping away at the lead from the Lady Chaps as Montse Gutierrez caught fire by scoring the final eight points of the second quarter for UT Tyler to pull the Patriots within one point after the first 20 points.
 
Over the first half, the Lady Chaps made just one more field goal than the Patriots while both teams were knotted up at 15 rebounds and 14 points in the paint. The Patriots shot 48% from the field in the half while Lubbock Christian shot 44%.
 
To begin the second half, both teams settled into a defensive battle as neither side made a field goal over the first 2:28 of the quarter. The two teams traded buckets quickly over the next minute and a half, but two early free throws gave the Lady Chaps a four point lead.
 
The Lady Chaps bucket at the 6:16 mark would be their final bucket until the 10 second mark of the quarter, as the Patriots put together a huge defensive stretch to keep the LSC's best field goal percentage team at bay.
 
In that stretch, the Patriots rattled off an 8-0 run behind four points from Bradley and two each from Whitehead and Gabby Elliott. That gave the Patriots a four point lead but the Lady Chaps would answer with five straight points to take the lead right back.
 
In the closing seconds of the quarter, Meagan Mendazona would put together the first dramatic flair of the contest as she ran the length of the floor and put up a floating three pointer to put the Patriots up by two with 10 minutes remaining.
 
In the final frame of the night, it was the Lady Chaps again taking the early run as they buried three straight three pointers on a 9-2 run over the first 1:57 of the quarter to take a five point lead.
 
The Patriots battled back with their own pair of triples from Tina Machalova sandwiched around Lady Chaps free throws to cut the deficit down to just one. That stretch came in the middle of a stretch that saw the Patriots hold Lubbock Christian without a field goal for 5:48 of game time.
 
The final bucket of the night for Lubbock Christian was dropped in at the 2:15 mark of the quarter to give them a three point advantage, but Ella Bradley quickly answered with a layup of her own to keep the Patriots down one.
 
At the one minute mark, the Patriots had four straight shots that could not find the bottom of the net before the Lady Chaps eventually grabbed the rebound. On the ensuing Lady Chaps possession, the Patriots would force a huge shot clock turnover before going back down to their end of the floor. A pair of timeouts around a pair of fouls dropped the clock to just under five seconds with the Patriots controlling the ball.
 
On the inbound play, Montse Gutierrez found a wide open Tina Machalova on the back door cut and she was able to drop in the layup. The Patriots then played tough defense on the inbound play to hold off any hope of a last second shot from the Lady Chaps and secure the win.
 
The Patriots went 19-for-48 in the contest for 40% from the field, while the Lady Chaps went 18-for-48 for 38% from the field in the contest. Both teams made six triples for the contest while the Lady Chaps made one more free throw.
 
In the contest, three Patriots dropped in double figures, led by 13 points from Destini Whitehead. She went 5-for-7 from the floor and 2-for-3 from deep while grabbing three rebounds.
 
Gutierrez scored 12 points and Machalova scored 10. Ella Bradley grabbed a team-high eight rebounds and scored eight points.
 
Next up for #24 UT Tyler will be a matchup with West Texas A&M on Saturday afternoon in Canyon, Texas. That game is scheduled for a 1 p.m. tipoff inside the First United Bank Center.