Feb. 15, 2008

CANYON, Texas - After two weeks of traveling, the No. 17 West Texas A&M women's basketball team returns to the First United Bank Center on Saturday night to host border rival Eastern New Mexico. The game kick-starts a four-game home stand for the Lady Buffs before they end the regular season on the road on March 1.

WT picked up its 18th win of the season with an 89-51 win over Midwestern State earlier this week, improving to 8-1 in Lone Star Conference South play and 18-4 overall. Junior All-American Emily Brister again led the Lady Buffs' scoring push with 18 points while junior Chelsea Blackshear tied a career-high with 17 points on 5-of-6 shooting from long distance. Fellow classmate Jamie Dreiling tallied 16 points in the win as she sank 7-of-15 baskets from the floor.

Brister continues to lead the Lady Buffs and the LSC in scoring with 22.0 points per game on 161-of-331 (.486) shooting from the floor, 28-of-83 (.337) three-point baskets and 133-of-150 (.887) made free throws. Blackshear leads the team in three-point percentage as she is shooting 43.3% (26-of-60) in addition to being third on the team with 56 assists.

As a team, the Lady Buffs are averaging 72.1 points per game while leading the conference in holding opponents to an average of 55.7 points per game.

Eastern New Mexico comes to Canyon with an overall record of 4-18 and a conference mark of 1-8; the Zias' lone LSC South win came on Feb. 9 when they beat Texas A&M-Kingsville by a 66-60 margin. However, last week ENMU suffered an 80-60 loss to Abilene Christian in Portales, N.M. Til-Lois Fifer leads the way for the Zias with averages of 10.3 points per game and 5.9 rebounds per game.