Women's basketball find road life hard

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by Alex Chapman

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The women's basketball team took to the road this week, falling to the University of Texas in the second half Wednesday night after splitting a pair of conference games earlier in the week.

The Owls played strong early but ran into trouble late as Texas ran away with a game controlled by the Owls earlier in the evening. Texas ended up with a 89-75 victory, dominating the second half 53-31.

Leading the way for the Owls was Tammy McCallum in a nearly routine double-double with 20 points and 11 rebounds.

All nine Rice players saw substantial action, with the starters forced to play nearly 80 percent of the minutes, and Kim LaLonde playing 36 minutes.

Jennifer Hamilton continued to pick up a large portion of the scoring burden, adding 17 points. Hamilton has stepped up, scoring in double figures in 11 of the last 14 games. Jessica Garcia had 10 points, and LaLonde had seven assists to go along with her six points.

The Owls finished the first half up by eight points and out-rebounded the Longhorns by a final margin of 41-38.

But after making 53 percent of their shots in the first half, the Owls could only manage to hit for 35 percent in the second half, including zero for five outside the arc.

Against Texas Tech, the Owls struggled in nearly all aspects of the game as they lost 67- 48. They shot 31 percent from the floor and committed 20 turnovers.

Bright spots for the Owls were LaLonde with 14 points (but eight turnovers) and Hamilton, who scored 11 points and had seven rebounds.

A victory against Baylor University was the high point for the Owls this week, as they defeated the Bears 60-54.

A blistering first half, in which they shot a season-high 61.5 percent from the floor, proved to be enough to come away with the victory.

Hamilton scored 13 points, and LaLonde had 12 points and seven assists. McCallum had eight rebounds and moved into 10th place on Rice's all-time career scoring list with 861 points.

The Owls return home to face the University of Houston in a televised game on Feb. 10 at 4:00 p.m. and they host Southern Methodist University at Autry Court on Feb. 14 at 7 p.m.

This item appeared in the Sports section of the February 9, 1996 issue.

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