Mean Green Gals beat UTPA 57-50

SUMG · December 21, 2004

(Our women won again tonight, and are now 5-4. I am pleasantly surprised as I thought this would be a major rebuilding year, and that we would be lucky to win 7-10 games. Way to go, Mean Green!)

EDINBURG, Tex. (12/20/04) – Erika Bobo poured in a career-high 23 points to lead the North Texas women’s basketball team to a 57-50 win over UT-Pan American at the UTPA Fieldhouse. Bobo scored 14 second half points as the Mean Green lead wire-to wire and picked up its second road win of the season and improve to 5-4 on the year.

“Erika did a great job tonight of breaking their defense down and she was very big for us tonight,” said North Texas head coach Tina Slinker. “I felt like coming in that they (UTPA) wanted her to beat them if someone was and she certainly did tonight”.

North Texas opened the game with an early flurry jumping on top of the Lady Broncs 10-0 in the first five minutes of the game. UT-Pan American (4-7) responded with a 14-6 run over the next eight minutes to trim the Mean Green’s lead to just two points at 16-14.

North Texas went into the break with a three point lead at 23-20 when Bobo came out and exploded in the second half. Bobo scored the Mean Green’s first seven points in the second half as North Texas extended its lead to 30-24 with 17:14 remaining.

UT-Pan American got as close as three points at 43-40 with 4:57 left in the game until guard Natalie Mireles, who tied a career-high with 10 points, iced the game with a 3-pointer two minutes later.

Mireles took a feed from a driving Bobo and hit her second 3-pointer of the game with only 2:13 remaining to give the Mean Green a 55-46 lead.

North Texas closed the game from the free throw line as the Mean Green took 38 shots from the free throw line to only 14 for the Lady Broncs.

“This was a nice win for us because this is a tough place to play but I know that we are going to have to play much against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi”.

North Texas continues its two-game road swing on Wednesday December 22 at Texas A&M-Corpus Chrisit.