Sloppy Cowgirls stop Corpus<\/p>\n
Published 9:45 pm Thursday, January 15, 2026<\/p>\n
At least the Cowgirls\u2019 defense traveled.<\/p>\n
Behind a solid defensive performance, McNeese State\u2019s women\u2019s basketball team held on to first place Thursday night as they opened a three-game road trip in Corpus Christi, Texas.<\/p>\n
The Cowgirls improved to 13-4 overall and 7-1 in the Southland Conference, a game ahead of four teams in the league standings with the 59-42 victory over Texas A&M-Corpus Christi inside the Hilliard Center.<\/p>\n
Half of the Islanders\u2019 points came in the fourth quarter when McNeese went to its bench to rest players for Saturday\u2019s game at Texas-Rio Grande Valley.<\/p>\n
It was McNeese\u2019s sixth straight victory, all in conference play, and eighth in its last nine games. The Islanders fell to 2-13, 1-7 with the loss. But it wasn\u2019t always pretty.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot up to par,\u201d said McNeese head coach Ayla Guzzardo. \u201cIt was not up to our standards. However, a win is a win in the Southland Conference, and we will take it.\u201d<\/p>\n
McNeese won in a blowout despite making just 21 of 62 shots from the field, at 34 percent. The Cowgirls did manage to hit on 8 of 15 3-pointers.<\/p>\n
They also forced 29 turnovers, 18 of which came off steals. That led to 20 of the Cowgirls\u2019 points.<\/p>\n
Arianna Patton led all scorers with 11 points, connecting on 3 of 4 long-range shots. Lexi Alexander tossed in 10 while Jalencia Pierrie added eight. K\u2019Nar Holliday led the Islanders with 10 points.<\/p>\n
\u201cVery thankful for the win, but at the same time it\u2019s not how we want to play games,\u201d said Guzzardo. \u201cIt was frustrating at times.\u201d<\/p>\n
Both offensives struggled mightily from the start, with neither team scoring a basket until Alexander connected from the floor on a traditional 3-point play 4:46 into the game.<\/p>\n
When Alexander hit the free throw, the Cowgirls had the lead at 5-1 and never looked back. They finished the first quarter up 11-3.\u00a0<\/p>\n
McNeese scored the last nine points of the half to extend its lead to 28-13 at the break. A 12-0 spurt, fueled by a pair of Patton threes, at the end of the third quarter gave McNeese a 45-21 advantage heading into the fourth quarter.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Cowgirls will have to play better Saturday when they take on the Vaqueros, who are one of the four clubs a game behind McNeese. Rio Grande Valley improved to 9-8, 6-2 on Thursday by beating Southeastern 78-65.<\/p>\n
Charlotte O\u2019Keefe led the way for the Vaqueros with 22 points and 22 rebounds.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHopefully we can turn it up a bit,\u201d said Guzzardo. \u201cRGV is a great team. We have to go back to the drawing board and rev it up for a one-day prep to get ready.\u201d<\/p>\n
The game will tipoff at 2 p.m. RGV has won four straight games heading into the showdown.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sloppy Cowgirls stop Corpus Published 9:45 pm Thursday, January 15, 2026 At least the Cowgirls\u2019 defense traveled. Behind…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":125306,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[155,157,156],"class_list":{"0":"post-125305","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-corpus-christi","8":"tag-corpus-christi","9":"tag-corpus-christi-headlines","10":"tag-corpus-christi-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125305\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/125306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}