Sam Houston State women’s basketball heads into its final two games of the season this week, sharing a piece of the eighth seed in the Southland Conference tournament.
The teams keeping the Bearkats from clinching postseason play are Lamar and Stephen F. Austin State.
“We have a lot of pressure, because we are trying to make it into the conference tournament,” sophomore guard Taylor Dorsey said. “If we win these games that would guarantee us the eighth seed for the tournament.”
The Cardinals and Lumberjacks currently top the SLC with Lamar in second and SFA holding an outright lead of first. The Kats’ first test will be tonight against the Cardinals.
In the Kats’ first meeting with Lamar this season on Jan. 29, SHSU struggled to shutout the Lamar offense, who had four players in double digits. Junior guard Shernise Robertson had to pile the Kats’ offensive workload with 29 points in the losing effort.
“I’m motivated,” Dorsey said. “I feel like we can beat both of these teams if we play together and have a since of urgency throughout the whole game.”
SHSU enters Beaumont on a six-game losing streak, not winning a game in the entire month of February. The Kats’ last win was Jan. 31 to Houston Baptist.
HBU is fighting for the eighth seed with SHSU. The Huskies, however, have an easier road to Katy.
Playing Texas A&M-Corpus Christi tonight, HBU will then travel to San Antonio to end the season against Incarnate Word. UIW has the worst schedule in the SLC. In HBU’s last game against the UIW Cardinals, the Huskies barely skimmed a 67-64 win.
The Kats will have to play its best offense these last two games if they want to continue playing past Saturday. After shooting above 40 percent from the floor the entire month of January, SHSU only did that once in February. SHSU’s best shooting performance this season came against Lamar where the Kats shot 50 percent.
SHSU does have a slight advantage heading into Nacogdoches against SFA. The Kats hold the win from the teams’ first meeting Jan. 24 where SHSU won 65-64 at Johnson Coliseum. Robertson led the charge with a 21-point performance.
Dorsey had the hot hands for the Bearkats this past Monday against Central Arkansas. She finished with 18 points with Robertson’s 14 on the night. If the two’s guard play can control the tone of the game and if they can get help from the post, the Bearkats could see themselves getting a win or two in these last three games to clinch a spot in the SLC tournament. If not, SHSU will find its season over Saturday.
“Our game plan against Lamar and SFA is to have a whole team performance from the post scoring to the guards,” Dorsey said. “That is how we succeeded against SFA the first time we beat them because we had an all-around performance from everyone.”
Tipoff for tonight’s game is slated for 5:30 p.m. Saturday’s game to SFA is set at 4 p.m.
