By Jerry Briggs
Special for The JB Replay

Limited to only one point in the last five minutes and 48 seconds, the first-place UTSA Roadrunners women held on until the end of a dramatic finish, stoking their American Athletic Conference championship hopes with a 57-55 road victory Saturday over the Rice Owls.

Rice’s Dominique Ennis misfired on an open-look, three-point attempt at the buzzer, which sent UTSA players into celebration on the court with their sixth straight win and their 23rd overall, which ties for second most in a season in the program’s 44-year history.

By hanging on, UTSA (23-3, 14-1) also maintained a one-game lead on the South Florida Bulls (20-8, 13-2) in the AAC’s regular-season title race. South Florida played at home in Tampa and won its ninth straight by beating Memphis, 80-70. Sammie Puisis led the Bulls with 34 points.

The Roadrunners have three games remaining, including a road game Tuesday in New Orleans against the Tulane Green Wave, before the start of the AAC tournament. After beating Rice, the Roadrunners moved into a tie with the 2007-08 UTSA team with 23 wins.

If they can beat the Green Wave, they would tie the 2008-09 team for the school record of 24. Both of those squads, coached by the late Rae Rippetoe-Blair and led by point guard Monica Gibbs, won Southland Conference postseason titles and played in the NCAA tournament.

After the Rice game, UTSA coach Karen Aston put on the headset at press row and talked to radio voice Neal Raphael. She sounded relieved. “It’s hard to win on the road, that’s the first thing I’ll say,” Aston said.

With Jordyn Jenkins hitting five of her first six shots, the Roadrunners started fast, storming to a 22-6 lead near the end of the first quarter.

But as the game went on, Rice defended Jenkins better, and both Jenkins and Idara Udo played their way into foul trouble. To make matters more troubling, Ennis started to play well, hitting shots from all angles and distances.

In the last six minutes, the Owls kept grinding away and nearly knocked off off the conference leaders. With 5:48 remaining, Roadrunners guard Nina De Leon Negron hit a three-point basket. The shot went down and gave UTSA a 56-49 lead.

From there, by unofficial count, UTSA missed five field goal attempts and committed two turnovers. The Owls, meanwhile, called on Victoria Flores for a layup. Ennis followed with a three with 2:45 remaining, pulling Rice to within 56-53.

Going into the last half minute, the Owls looked to be the aggressor. With Ennis floating on the perimeter, a danger to score from anywhere, the ball went inside to forward Sussy Ngulefac, who hit from close range. UTSA’s lead was down to one.

On the ensuing inbounds with 15 seconds left, De Leon Negron caught the pass but was tied up, with the possession going to Rice. Ennis, however, misfired from about 13 feet with Maya Linton and Udo coming out to contest.

The defensive stop gave UTSA a last chance with the ball, and the Roadrunners eked one point out of it on a De Leon Negron free throw. She hit it with a second left for the 57-55 lead.

After Rice rebounded De Leon Negron’s next free throw, a miss, the home team had a chance, with the Owls getting to advance the ball to its own end of the court. On an inbounds play, Ennis popped open and had a look at the basket, but she missed off the rim.

“It was Senior Day for these guys (the Owls) and they were jockeying for position as are we, and I thought that Rice played their hearts out. I thought we did, too,” Aston said in an interview on The Bull, on the postgame radio show. “We just … you know, maybe we played not to lose there toward the end of the game.”

Aston had more to say:

“We made a lot of mistakes — defensively, offensively — just uncharacteristic (of our team). Just not being able to listen (was a factor). It was loud in here. We just couldn’t process some of the things we were talking about in timeouts.

“(It was) emotional.

“That’s just where this team is right now,” the coach said. “They want to win so bad that they’re having trouble just relaxing. You know, that’s what happens when you’ve never won anything before, and you’re trying really hard to do it. You’re just trying to find ways to get through it, and we did that.”

UTSA is 16-1 in its last 17 games, with the only loss coming on Jan. 29 at South Florida, 75-63. Jenkins sat out against South Florida with an injury, the only game she hasn’t played this season.

Records

UTSA 23-3, 14-1
Rice 13-14, 6-9

Coming up

UTSA at Tulane (16-10, 9-6), Tuesday, 6:30 p.m.
FAU at UTSA, Saturday, March 1, noon
UTSA at East Carolina, Tuesday, March 4, 5 p.m.

AAC leaders

UTSA 14-1, 23-3
South Florida 13-2, 20-8
North Texas 12-3, 20-7

Notable

UTSA — The Roadrunners are trying to win their first regular-season title since Rae Rippetoe-Blair’s 2008-09 team tied UT Arlington for the Southland Conference crown at 14-2. UTSA went on to win the SLC postseason championship and lost to No. 2-seed Baylor in the NCAA first round, finishing 24-9.

Coach Karen Aston, in her 17th year as an NCAA Division I head coach, has won 346 games. She has a winning percentage of almost 63 percent and has led her teams to seven NCAA tournaments, including four trips to the Sweet 16 and one to the Elite Eight. But she is still looking for her first regular-season title.

Forward Jordyn Jenkins led UTSA with 19 points on six of 13 shooting. Idara Udo, who has had three double doubles recently, finished with eight points and four rebounds in 28 minutes. Both Jenkins and Udo were limited with four fouls. Forward Cheyenne Rowe came off the bench for 10 points on four of seven. Nina De Leon Negron had four points, five rebounds and seven assists. She also contributed four steals.

Rice — Dominique Ennis had 21 points, five rebounds and four assists. She went nine of 23 from the field and made three three-point shots. Forward Sussy Ngulefac, who scored 16 against the Roadrunners in San Antonio in January, didn’t touch the ball much in the first half and was held to 11. Malia Fisher, Rice’s other major scoring threat, scored only four. Hailey Adams, a Rice sophomore from San Antonio’s Clark High School, had seven points and 12 rebounds.

First half

UTSA surged behind the hot shooting of forward Jordyn Jenkins into a 16-point lead in the first quarter, only to see the Rice Owls rally with a focused defensive effort. In the end, the Roadrunners took a 36-27 lead into intermission.

Both teams entered the game in Houston at Tudor Fieldhouse with different motivations. The Roadrunners were looking to protect a one-game lead in the American Athletic Conference, while the Owls wanted to win on Senior Day.

The Owls entered the game with a 10-3 record at home this season.

Tulane update

The Green Wave (16-10 on the season and to 9-6 in the AAC) celebrated Senior Night on Saturday with a 68-64 home victory over Wichita State.

Sherese Pittman recorded her sixth double-double with 17 points and 16 rebounds and Victoria Keenan added 16 on four 3-pointers. Kyren Whittington contributed 12 points.

Amira Mabry, a Tulane junior from San Antonio area Converse Judson High School, was the team’s top rebounder with 11. Freshman Kendall Sneed posted six assists and four steals.