Bobcats hold on for tough home win against Morgan State

Texas State held off a furious rally by Morgan State late in the fourth quarter as the Bobcats came out with a 58-50 win on Sunday to keep their undefeated home winning streak alive.

Despite being without leading scorer Da’Nasia Hood, head coach Zenarae Antoine was still confident about her team coming out with the win.

“I had a lot of confidence that our team was going to be able to win the basketball game,” Antoine said. “What had me stressed about this game is that Morgan State is excellent defensively. To face a team that is this good on the defensive end this early in the season where they are ranked 10th in the nation is exciting to have and you are happy to have them at home.”

Antoine complemented Morgan’s State’s strong defense and how it was able to slow the Bobcats down in the first half by holding them to just 24 points.

“They did a really good job in the first half of forcing not bad decisions but rather creating the illusion that something was there when it wasn’t,” Antoine said. “They were able to play that in there hands in addition of having an excellent point guard Ja’Niah Henson … she was just a young freshman when we played Morgan State last year but she wasn’t as near as efficient as she was today.”

Texas State has continued to find ways to score, particularly attacking the post, despite Hood’s absence on the floor.

“The adjustment in regards to game planning wise is trying to find ways to be successful when you watch the film,” Antoine said. “The way we have been able to find success in this particular season is scoring the paint. Finding points in the paint despite the fact Da’Nasia wasn’t in the game was key and we have other scorers as well ,so now it’s the question of how do we find those points against a very good Morgan State team.”

Leading scorer Tianna Eaton, who finished the game with a team-high 15 points, talked about the team not only practices attacking the paint but also feeding the ball down low to their posts.

“We are just trusting that we can make the pass and get it to our post players,” Eaton said. “It’s just trusting them that they can finish down low and they did a really good job of that today. [Lauryn Thompson] did a really good job of finishing which we have been practice all week of is feeding the posts and having them finish.”

Along with Eaton, Thompson finished the game with 12 points and 11 rebounds becoming the second straight Bobcat player to finish the game with a double-double.

“It’s about trusting the offense and being patient while also being disciplined,” Eaton said. “When we pass the ball, we trust that we are going to get it back and it will be a good shot.”

A pivotal moment in the game came when the Bobcats trailed Morgan State by four heading into halftime.

In response, Texas State went on an outstanding 16-0 run to go up 40-30 and held onto the lead for the rest of the game.

“We came out with an awesome attitude about getting it done as a team,” Antoine said. “They meet on our own in the locker room before the coaches and before we head, and they came with a positive and aggressive mindset in the third quarter. That is the beauty of playing team sports is that the team made the decision to do that together.”

Part of the motivation for the Bobcats is a picture taken of the team in their overtime loss to UTEP where the players have vowed to not doubt themselves.

“It was all about not getting down on ourselves,” Eaton said. “We were trailing by four at halftime and there is a picture that our coaches showed us when we played UTEP. They had scored and the image showed all of our heads hanging down. That has really been stuck in our head and we try to not let that happen. Teams are going to make runs but we have to keep our head up and do what we do best.”

Texas State returns to play Friday as the Bobcats take on Texas A&M Corpus Christi.