Texas A&M women’s basketball secured a win over Arkansas on Sunday, Feb. 22, growing its late-season win streak to three games. The Aggie seniors led the offensive charge, handling the Razorbacks in the 78-57 victory. After a cold stretch of conference play, the Maroon and White continue to turn things around as their season comes to a close.
A&M honored its seniors before Sunday’s game, celebrating senior guard Ny’Ceara Pryor, graduate student G Jordan Webster, graduate student forward Lauren Ware and senior G Lemyah Hylton. The Aggies’ stars went out in style, passing the baton in an offensive relay.
Emotional after the game, head coach Joni Taylor reflected on her team leaders and their performances against the Razorbacks.
Jordan Webster
After a tightly contested opening frame, A&M entered the second quarter leading Arkansas 15-11. Webster began the Aggie beatdown, starting the second frame with a 3-pointer from downtown.
“You learn so much about a person when they play hurt,” Taylor said. “She is someone who never makes excuses, always on top of her business and had a lot of options as to where she wanted to go. For her to come here, for her to sacrifice her body every day, for her to lead the way she leads and represent us the way she does, it’s something that is admirable.”
The Kansas transfer was the first player to carry the rock for A&M against Arkansas, leading the team at halftime with eight points. An additional 3-pointer in the third marked her last successful bucket, totaling 11 points by the final buzzer. Beginning to break away from the Razorbacks, the Aggies stretched their lead to 11 by the end of the second quarter, heading into the locker room up 36-25.
Ny’Ceara Pryor
Pryor made her presence known to start the second half, sharing the wealth with Webster. With seven points in the first half, the Sacred Heart transfer piled on the points, beginning the third quarter with another Aggie bucket from 3-point land.
“Her work on the floor speaks for itself,” Taylor said. “She leads us every single day. She’s actually the first player since Whitney Boddie from Auburn in 2009 to have three straight games with a double-double in points and assists, which is incredible in this league.”
A&M began the second half with perfection, shooting 7-for-7, hitting 2-for-2 from beyond the arc. Pryor led the Fightin’ Farmers with 16 points; however, the Aggies’ second-half surge wasn’t a solo job.
Lauren Ware
Scoring 11 total points, Ware tagged in when Pryor tagged out. Following Pryor’s opening trey in the second half, Ware went on a 5-0 run of her own, with back-to-back layups, followed by a free throw.
“She’s the coach of this team, not me,” Taylor said. “She is the standard. She’s who you want your daughter to follow and who you want your son to marry. Her integrity and her determination is well beyond her years. She had a choice to make last year. Lauren was a senior last year. For her to decide to come back here and put her body on the line for another year, for her to see who we were talking to in the portal and the freshman that we were bringing in and say, ‘I want to be a part of that, I want to make sure that we leave Texas A&M better than we found it,’ it speaks to who she is as a person.”
Alongside Pryor, Ware led her team with a field goal percentage of 66%. Any ounce of hope for Arkansas was erased as the Maroon and White began to move the game out of contention.
Lemyah Hylton
Hylton brought up the rear for the Aggie seniors with eight points, yet her performance was nothing short of pivotal. The Miami transfer worked in tandem with Webster throughout the game, working together for a 4-0 scoring run before the half and a 5-0 scoring run in the third quarter.
“I’ve known Lemyah for a really long time,” Taylor said. “I coached against her with USA Basketball when she was on team Canada and stayed up several nights trying to figure out how we were going to guard her. I’d never thought I’d have an opportunity to coach her, so to have that is a tremendous blessing.”
Led by their seniors, the Aggies crushed the Razorbacks, adding another loss to Arkansas’ 14-game losing streak. A&M moved to 5-9 in Southeastern Conference play, pushing its overall record above .500, 12-11.
The Maroon and White will play their final home game against Mississippi State on Thursday, Feb. 26, at Reed Arena with tipoff set for 7 p.m.
