BY TRAVIS CRAM
AVALANCHE-JOURNAL

COLLEGE STATION — All it took was one play to change the outcome of the women’s basketball game between Texas Tech and No. 8 Texas A&M on Tuesday night at Reed Arena.

Tech’s Dominic Seals — who had 18 points and had guarded Danielle Gant well enough to hold her to four points with five minutes to play — went down after twisting her ankle while going for a rebound.

That play left Seals out of the game for more than three minutes while she got her left ankle taped, and Gant scored three straight baskets and hit two free throws to lead the Aggies to a 67-56 win over the Lady Raiders.

Seals said she’s “going to be fine.”

Cram Session by Travis Cram

A&M (14-1, 2-0 Big 12 Conference) got its first two-win start to conference play for the first time since the league’s inception in 1996. Tech (10-5, 1-1) dropped its ninth consecutive Big 12 road game and 10th straight road game overall.

For Tech head coach Kristy Curry, the finger didn’t point at Gant for the reason A&M pulled away with a win.

“I think probably more than anything, it’s what Tech didn’t do,” she said. “It’s what Tech did to Tech.”

Gant, who was 10 of 10 from the field and 2 of 2 from the free-throw line in Saturday’s 62-56 win over Missouri, scored 14 of her 18 points in the final six minutes of the game on 4-of-6 shooting from the field and eight consecutive free throws.

She finished with 10 rebounds to give her a 15th career double-double.

“That’s been Danielle’s M.O. for the last two games,” said Takia Starks, who had 21 points for A&M. “She does everything that we need.”

Starks scored 20 points or more for the third straight game against Tech — all wins.

Missed close shots haunted Tech once again, the same thing that plagued the team in its last road loss at New Mexico on Dec. 13.

Jordan Murphree, who averaged 18.3 points in Tech’s last three games, was limited to two points on 1-of-13 shooting and fouled out with 1:37 to go.

Texas A&M head coach Gary Blair said having freshman Maryann Baker act as Murphree in A&M’s practices helped more than anything.

“I think by Mary torching us in practice,” he said, “it made us do a lot better job on Murphree. I thought that was the key to the ballgame. We just didn’t let her get off.”

The Lady Raiders managed to take a lead with 16:10 to go after trailing by seven points at halftime.

The Aggies used a 14-0 run in the first half to take an 11-point lead over Tech. The Lady Raiders turned the ball over three times and went 0 of 5 from the field, going nearly five minutes without a basket.

Kierra Mallard made her second 3-pointer of the season to end A&M’s run and put Tech on a 6-2 streak to end the half trailing 35-28.

Mallard finished with 11 points, as did Maria Moore.

A&M outshot Tech 12 of 23 (52 percent) to 8 of 23 (35 percent) through the 11-minute mark in the second half after the run by the Aggies.

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