By Jerry Briggs
Special for The JB Replay

Winners of an eye-opening 18 games on the season and chasing a conference championship, the UTSA women will face their third title contender in seven days tonight when they host forward Tommisha Lampkin and the North Texas Mean Green at the Convocation Center. Tipoff is at 6:30 p.m.

In the past week, the first-place Roadrunners’ have had only mixed results against a couple of teams grouped in the upper tier of contenders in the American Athletic Conference race. Last week, for instance, they traveled to Tampa, Fla., and had their 10-game winning streak snapped at the hands of the South Florida Bulls.

The Bulls pulled away late and won 75-63.

Sitting out the game was injured UTSA forward Jordyn Jenkins, the leading scorer in the the AAC, as well as the scoring and rebounding leader for the Roadrunners. Last weekend, the Roadrunners returned home to play the Temple Owls and surged late to win, 70-61.

But it wasn’t easy. With Jenkins returning to the court against the Owls, she turned it on in the second half and rallied the Roadrunners, who also were buoyed by big performances from Nina De Leon Negron, Idara Udo and Cheyenne Rowe.

UTSA trailed by 14 early in the third quarter and by 11 early in the fourth before making the final push in front of a vocal crowd, improving to 11-1 in their last 12 games. Now they’re preparing to face the Mean Green, who lost at South Florida last weekend despite Lampkin’s second strong performance in a row.

Following a 16-point, 10-rebound showing in a close win at home against Temple, the 6-foot-2 senior forward from Mansfield exploded for 19 points and 15 boards against the Bulls. With her recent play, Lampkin has joined Jenkins as a player to watch in the AAC’s player of the year race.

Lampkin averages 16.7 points and 9.7 rebounds, and she leads the conference in shooting 57 percent from the field. Jenkins, a 6-foot senior from Washington, is the leading scorer in the AAC at 18.8 points. She’s also averaging 7.2 rebounds.

Records

North Texas 16-6, 8-2
UTSA 18-3, 9-1

Coming up

North Texas at UTSA, tonight, 6:30 p.m.
UTSA at Wichita State, Saturday, 2 p.m.

AAC leaders

UTSA 9-1, 18-3
North Texas 8-2, 16-6
South Florida 8-2, 15-8
Tulane 7-3, 14-7
Temple 6-4, 12-7
UAB 5-5, 14-8
Rice 5-5, 12-10
Tulsa 5-5, 11-11
Memphis 3-6, 5-15
East Carolina 3-7, 11-11
Charlotte 2-7, 7-13
FAU 2-8, 4-13
Wichita State 1-9, 7-16