STILLWATER \u2013 The season of being thankful is here, and the Cowgirls are thankful to be back in the win column.<\/p>\n
Oklahoma State beat Texas A&M-Corpus Christi 98-45 on Monday night at Gallagher-Iba Arena. The win improved the Cowgirls to 6-1 this season. The team is still unbeaten at home.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m so grateful to coach in a place where we have the fans behind us,\u201d coach Jacie Hoyt said. \u201cWhen I pulled up to the arena and saw people waiting at the doors, that just meant the world to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Aggressive defense was the key to the Cowgirls\u2019 success. The Cowgirls forced 34 turnovers, including 16 in the first half, and limited the Islanders to 14 made baskets.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith our depth and speed we can be really effective with a press,\u201d Hoyt said. \u201cWe feel pretty confident in that so I wanted to keep working on it more tonight and get those reps pressing.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Cowgirls turned those 16 first half turnovers into 22 points and finished with 46 points off turnovers.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were soft in the loss to St. John\u2019s like we were a bunch of poodles,\u201d Hoyt said. \u201cWe have to be pitbulls. The team response was good. I\u2019m tired of having to talk about poodles.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Islanders did not score after halftime until the 2:58 mark of the third quarter on a pair of free throws.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe wanted to keep them to zero,\u201d guard Lena Girardi said. \u201cWe\u2019re never taking our foot off the gas. We\u2019re trying to run the ball down people\u2019s throats for 40 minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Eight players scored for the Cowgirls. Guard Haleigh Timmer led the team with 25 points.<\/p>\n
\u201cHaleigh is an elite shooter,\u201d Hoyt said. \u201cIt says a lot about the team\u2019s belief in her that we all want her to shoot it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Oklahoma State also had success sharing the ball, finishing with 17 assists on 32 made baskets.<\/p>\n
\u201cCoach has really taught us just how to share the ball and share the wealth,\u201d Girardi said. \u201cWe\u2019re really just focused on playing our best and moving the ball to get the best shots.\u201d<\/p>\n
The offense started slowly, falling behind 7-3 before closing the first quarter on a 17-0 run.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we just had to get our bearings back,\u201d Hoyt said. \u201cI think we were still playing a little bit fearful and playing afraid to make mistakes instead of playing as the aggressor so I was happy to see us shake out of that.\u201d<\/p>\n
The game was crucial for the Cowgirls\u2019 confidence before the Cayman Islands Classic later this week.<\/p>\n
\u201cTonight was a great first step and we did what we needed to do,\u201d Hoyt said. \u201cWe have a tough road ahead of us so I\u2019m just looking forward to continuing in the next couple days of practice to figure out how we can get better.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"STILLWATER \u2013 The season of being thankful is here, and the Cowgirls are thankful to be back in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":63953,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[3804,155,157,156,33449,33450,544,15927,15715],"class_list":{"0":"post-63952","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-corpus-christi","8":"tag-3804","9":"tag-corpus-christi","10":"tag-corpus-christi-headlines","11":"tag-corpus-christi-news","12":"tag-jacie-hoyt","13":"tag-kyle-alan","14":"tag-oklahoma-state","15":"tag-pokes-report","16":"tag-womens-basketball"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63952","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=63952"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63952\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}