IRVING, Texas -- The #RV TLU women's basketball team punched a hard-fought ticket to the SCAC Tournament championship for the first time since winning it all in 2019 with a 63-57 win over No. 21 Colorado College in Saturday's semifinal round at the Maher Center in Irving. When an early lead dissipated for the Bulldogs, they'd regroup and rally in the second half to pull out the victory and improve to 22-4 overall. Colorado College is now 23-3 and will await an at-large bid to the 2025 NCAA Division-III Tournament.
The 22 wins for Texas Lutheran tie the 1984-85 squad for the second most wins in a season in program history.
The Bulldogs had four players score in double figures in the game. Junior guard Lauren Sansano (San Antonio/FEAST) led Texas Lutheran with 18 points and seven rebounds and Kailee Mulkey (New Braunfels/New Braunfels) added her second double-double of the tournament with 13 points and 10 rebounds in addition to four assists. Sarahi Jones (Los Fresnos/Los Fresnos) scored 13 points and grabbed eight rebounds while Zaria Solis (Burnet/Burnet) also scored 13 points, grabbed four rebounds, and matched her career-high with four blocks.
TLU came out hot while the Tigers ran cold in the first 10 minutes as TLU opened up shooting 58.8 percent from the field in the first. Colorado College shot just 27.8 percent in the first quarter but timely threes limited the damage to a 20-14 deficit after one quarter. The Bulldogs limited the nationally ranked Tigers to just eight points on 25 percent shooting in the second quarter. The Bulldogs shot 56.3 percent from the field in the first half and led 36-22 at the halftime break. Lauren Sansano was sensational in the first half, finishing with 14 points while going 7-for-7 from the field. TLU was also up on the boards 19-17 thanks in part to five rebounds from Mulkey.
Texas Lutheran took the Colorado College run to the chin to start the second half but was able to tread water, despite the hot shooting Tigers outscoring the Bulldogs 21-13 in the third.
Going into the fourth period Texas Lutheran held a 49-43 lead, but despite their best efforts, Colorado College would not come closer than four points in the fourth despite the Bulldogs shooting woes.
The Bulldogs did not make a field goal in the final 2:35 of the game, shooting 18 percent from the floor in the final period, but would go 9-12 from the free throw line including Mulkey finishing 7-of-8 from the line in the fourth.
Texas Lutheran and Trinity will meet in the 2025 SCAC Championship on Sunday at noon in the final matchup between the two rival programs as SCAC instituitons with Trinity leaving the conference after this season. The game will be streamed on FloSports. All streaming and live stats links will be available on tlubulldogs.com.
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