By Jerry Briggs
Special for The JB Replay

A day after jetting back to San Antonio from a holiday tournament in Puerto Rico, the UTSA women’s basketball team returned to work on Monday with wind behind its sails, so to speak.

The Roadrunners swept two games at the Puerto Rico Clasico in San Juan, improving their record to a 6-1 on the season and extending their winning streak to six games.

Coach Karen Aston thanked the UTSA administration for allowing her program to make the trip.

“It was an experience for everyone — the staff, student-athletes,” she said. “We have a lot of people, including myself, who’ve never been to Puerto Rico. It was a great, great atmosphere. Tournament was well done.”

The Roadrunners made the most of their trip by notching victories over the UNC Greensboro Warriors and the Towson Tigers.

After dispatching a once-beaten Greensboro team 62-53 on Thursday morning, UTSA walloped winless Towson 71-40 on Friday, the second day of a back-to-back.

“I thought our team played with a good amount of energy,” Aston said. “It was kind of a long trip, so I was curious to see how we would handle back to back games, with Towson not having played the day before, like we did. I thought our team handled it really well, a sign of a different level of maturity.

“I thought we played good in spurts and definitely had some things that we can get back this week and work on.”

Coming up

Sam Houston State at UTSA, Saturday, 1 p.m.

Notable

Upon release of the NCAA’s NET rankings on Monday, the first release of the season, the UTSA women were ranked No. 57 out of 362 Division I programs, the highest of any team in the American Athletic Conference.

Tulane was 90th, followed by South Florida (99) and Temple (100) among the highest-ranked teams in The American.

Only four other teams in the state were ranked higher than UTSA, with Texas listed third, TCU fifth, Baylor 26th and Stephen F. Austin 48th.

The NET rankings were initiated for the 2018-19 season to replace the RPI.