Lady T-Birds rally to beat Odessa

What a comeback!

The New Mexico Junior College women's basketball team rallied from a 12-point deficit over the final 10 minutes of play to beat Odessa College 71-69 Monday night at Caster Activity Center.

"We were fortunate to get the win," NMJC coach Drew Sanders said. "That type of win, against that good of a team, hopefully will help us going into the playoffs.

"We are excited," the coach continued. "To fight back that hard, it was really, really big. It was a testament to the girls' heart and not quitting and the way we played the first half, it would have been very easy to do that."

With the win, NMJC improves to 28-1 and will play its final regular season game on Thursday when Midland College comes to town.

While not pretty, the win avenged the Lady Thunderbirds' loss to the Lady Wranglers last month in Odessa.

"That is a really good team," Sanders said of Odessa College. "The way they shot the ball in the first half was unbelievable, but we guarded them a lot better in the second half."

"Because we lost over there, it made this game more important to us," NMJC's Alexes Bryant added. "I am glad we did it (won)."

NMJC started the fourth quarter trailing 62-50. But, over the final 10 minutes of play, the Lady T-Birds outscored the Lady Wranglers 21-7 and no one was more important than Alexes Bryant to the Lady T-Birds during the fourth. Bryant had 10 of her game-high 32 points in the fourth, including the game-winner with 8 seconds to play.

"She played unbelievable," Sanders said. "She had to carry us there for a while."

During the fourth quarter, NMJC scored seven straight points to get back in the game. Danielle Craft got NMJC within three when she hit a trey with 5:51 to play. Bryant got NMJC within two points with 2:08 to play and Craft tied the score 69-69 with 1:37 left on the clock.

Odessa failed to get a shot off on the ensuing possession and was forced into a turnover when the shot clock expired with 1:06. While the Lady T-Birds were unable to take a lead, they did get the ball back with 35 seconds remaining when Odessa committed a foul.

As time wound down, NMJC got the ball to Bryant who hit a jumper in the lane, giving the Lady T-Birds their first lead of the game.

"We were down most of the game, until the last moment," Bryant said. "But that made it that much more fun. I am very proud of my team."

Odessa had not one or two chances to tie the game in the final seconds, but three chances. The Lady Wranglers took three shots, the first of which was a trey. Odessa missed and got the rebound. After two more shots from under the basket, Bryant grabbed the final rebound as time expired.

"It was tough to come back," Bryant said. "Coach (Sanders) had a game plan and we just followed through with it."

Odessa sank 11 treys in the game, eight of them coming in the first half.

The Lady T-Birds trailed 24-12 at the end of the first quarter and 42-31 at the break. They trailed by as many as 15 points in the second quarter. NMJC got within two points of Odessa with 3:36 left in the third, but by the end of the quarter, NMJC trailed by 12 points. The Lady T-Birds held Odessa to just seven points over the final 10 minutes of play.

"The girls just gut checked it," Sanders said. "You could see Odessa's body language was a little bit different in the second half and I knew we would have a chance if we would just start guarding them a little bit."

Aside from Bryant's 32 points, Ni'Asia McIntosh was the only other Lady T-Bird in double figure, finishing with 19 points while coming in off the bench.

Odessa College had five players in double figures, four of them were Lady Wrangler starters.