North Texas Daily

Women’s basketball won their third straight game versus Rice University, beating them 57-50 Thursday night.

Before the game, graduate forward Madison Townley received a special game ball and a video tribute from her teammates for breaking the program record for most games played in a career.

“I didn’t even know I had played this many games until there was a tweet about it when I had 114 [games played],” Townley said. “It was great because I had no clue [the video] was happening.”

Neither team scored for the first four minutes until junior forward Jaylen Mallard hit two free throws. To help break the scoring drought, the Mean Green turned to Townley, who scored seven points in the quarter. To end the first quarter, North Texas (11-10, 5-6 Conference USA) scored 13 points and held Rice (7-10, 2-7 C-USA) to four points on 1 of 12 shooting.

Both teams picked up the scoring in the second quarter with North Texas scoring 19 points — their highest-scoring quarter of the game. The Mean Green held a 14-point lead going into halftime.

“I thought we had a really good first half,” Head coach Jalie Mitchell said. “Our first 20 minutes on both ends of the floor I thought were pretty strong. I thought the cushion that we gave ourselves at halftime was very necessary.”

To start the third quarter, Rice went on an 11-2 scoring run to get within four points before Townley hit a jumper to turn the momentum of the contest back in the Mean Green’s favor.

“I thought the third quarter they came out and had a run and kind of set the tone to start the half, but I do think we responded — especially on the defensive end,” Mitchell said.

Later in the third, Mitchell went to the bench and got help from sophomore forward Tommisha Lampkin, who scored four quick points.

Lampkin said that her role is to provide energy and effort anytime she comes into the game. Lampkin ended the game with 10 points and five rebounds in 15 minutes for the Mean Green.

The North Texas bench outscored the Owls 24-1 with help from graduate guard Amber Dixon, who had seven points and freshman guard Kendall McGruder who had six points.

The Owls started off the fourth quarter with two 3-pointers from Maya Bokunewicz, who finished with 14 points. Regardless, The Mean Green continued to play tough defense and held the owls to 41 percent shooting.

“We forced 26 turnovers,” Mitchell said. “This is a good solid team, and we held them to 50 points, so those two numbers are all good in my book.”

North Texas travels down to Houston to take on Rice again on Saturday in an attempt to extend its win streak to four.

Featured Image: Redshirt senior forward Madison Townley shoots over Marshall defender on Feb. 27, 2021. Photo by Zachary Thomas