By Jerry Briggs
Special for The JB Replay

Junior forward Jordyn Jenkins rolled to another dominant performance, producing 25 points, 11 rebounds and four assists Thursday night as the 10th-place UTSA Roadrunners surprised the Rice Owls, 66-53, in Conference USA women’s basketball.

With her showing against the C-USA’s fourth-place team, Jenkins continued to blossom in her first season at UTSA. For the 6-foot Southern Cal transfer, it was her 13th game of 20 or more points and her eighth double double.

As a team, fast-improving UTSA showed that it might not belong near the bottom of the C-USA standings, in second-to-last place.

Since Jan. 28, the Roadrunners have notched victories against Louisiana Tech on the road, and at home against both the C-USA-leading Middle Tennessee State Lady Raiders and now against the Owls.

“My first thought is, we just need to play at home, and just skip going on the road,” UTSA coach Karen Aston said. “It makes a huge difference for our team, for some reason. I mean, I understand their comfort at home, in front of the fans, and just the energy.

“The camaraderie has been really good at home. I mean, I’ve been so proud of how we played.”

Rice entered the game at the UTSA Convocation Center in fourth place in the conference, having won two straight and four of five. Leaving San Antonio, the Owls were shaking their heads, limited to a season-low total in points and to 34.7 percent shooting.

In addition, the Roadrunners also punished the Owls on the glass, winning the rebounding battle, 45-23. UTSA outboarded Rice on the offensive glass, 19-7.

The Roadrunners started fast, playing solid defense and rebounding with aggression. They led 18-1 after the first seven minutes. Rice, one of the highest-scoring teams in the state of Texas, didn’t make a field goal until 2:50 remained in the first quarter on a drive by Destiny Jackson.

Early in the second quarter, the Roadrunners hiked the lead to as many as 20 twice, before foul trouble started to limit them offensively and defensively. The Owls kept chipping away and finally put on a charge in the fourth quarter, pulling to within five with seven minutes remaining.

At that juncture, Jenkins scored four points in an 8-0 run that effectively put the game away. Deb Nwakamma and Sidney Love also scored baskets in the streak.

After that, UTSA held a double-figure lead for the final five minutes and ended up celebrating a win over a team that had won 17 games and had been averaging 73.1 points. Rice, in fact, had eclipsed 90 points once and had surpassed 80 five other times.

Their previous scoring low? On Jan. 11, Rice was throttled by nationally-ranked Middle Tennessee, 85-56.

“We beat a very good team tonight,” Aston said. “That team is very good offensively. I thought we executed a lot of the game plan. We probably didn’t plan on playing as much man (defense) as we did tonight. But they played a lot of shooters most of the night. Offensively, we did some things with a lot of poise tonight.”

At least a portion of the Roadrunners’ narrative against the Owls had to do with the return of Love, and how she and another fellow freshman — forward Maya Linton — played so well and with so much poise off the bench.

After sitting out the last three games for undisclosed reasons, Love scored 13 points in 28 minutes. She hit five of 10 shots from the field in her first game action since the victory over LA Tech on Jan. 28

In addition, Linton had six points, seven rebounds and two steals in 21 minutes. Starting guard Kyra White also played well, notching eight points, six rebounds and five assists.

Another topic of discussion centered on Aston, who won her 299th career game. She is 299-186 in 15 seasons. The coach will try to get the milestone 300th on Saturday afternoon in Alabama when the Roadrunners take on the UAB Blazers.

Rice senior forward Ashlee Austin led the Owls with 17 points and three, 3-point baskets. Jackson scored 13 and Katelyn Crosthwait had 12. It was Crosthwait who scored 23 points on seven 3-pointers in a 78-76 victory over UTSA on Jan. 16.

Records

UTSA 7-17, 5-10
Rice 17-7, 8-7

Coming up

UTSA at UAB, Saturday, 1 p.m.
UTSA at North Texas, Monday, 6:30 p.m.
Florida Atlantic at UTSA, Feb. 23, 7 p.m.
Florida International at UTSA, Feb. 25, noon
UTSA at Charlotte, March 2, 5 p.m.

First half

Rebounding and defending with a fervor, UTSA played one of its best stretches of the season in the first half, running off to a 17-point lead after the opening quarter and boosting it to as many as 20 early in the second period.

From there, the Owls took advantage of Roadrunners’ foul trouble to climb back into contention. At one point, with UTSA’s Jordyn Jenkins, Elyssa Coleman and Kyra White all on the bench, Rice scored 10 straight points.

UTSA responded to get the last bucket of the half on a Sidney Love drive. As a result, the Roadrunners took a 34-22 lead at intermission. UTSA completely controlled the boards in the opening two quarters with a 28-10 advantage.

Jenkins led UTSA in scoring at the half with 15, while Love had eight and Maya Linton five. In rebounding, Deb Nwakamma had six boards, Linton five and Jenkins four.

Ashlee Austin led the Owls with 11 points. Other Rice shooters were far off the mark, as evidenced by 24 percent shooting from the field as a team.

Notable

UTSA athletics hosted its first Pride Night, which included giveaways to fans and also recognition of various groups, including the San Antonio Pride Committee, the LGBT Chamber of Commerce, Governors of Human Rights Campaign Board and Pride San Antonio.