KNOXVILLE, Tenn.—Texas A&M fell to Tennessee at the Thompson-Boling Arena in Knoxville, Tenn. by the score of 82-72 in front of 12,213 fans.
Senior Adrienne Pratcher led the Aggies with 20 points including four made three-pointers, 15 off Pratcher’s points came after halftime. Junior Kelsey Bone scored 14 points on the night on 7-of-10 shooting.
Texas A&M falls to 21-8 overall and 11-4 in conference, while Tennessee improved to 23-5 overall and 14-1 in league play.
The Aggies opened the scoring with a Courtney Williams steal and layup and continued to maintain a lead through the first media timeout. Bone scored six straight points for the Aggies as they took a 10-6 lead off four team assists, three of which were from freshman Courtney Walker.
Following the first timeout the pace of play cranked up with the Lady Vols and Aggies racing up and down the floor, the Lady Vols outscored the Ags 7-4 between the stops in play.
The two teams played back-and-forth over the next eight minutes with A&M maintaining the lead through the four minute mark. The Ags were shooting 12-for-25 from the floor through the first 16 minutes versus Tennessee shooting 10-for-26 from the floor.
Tennessee used a 12-2 run over the final 2:22 of the first half to take a 37-32 lead into the locker room. A&M shot 50% from the floor in the first half and held the Lady Vols to 39.4% from the floor.
After the break, the Aggies scored six of the first eight points to cut the deficit to just one and forcing a Tennessee timeout, Williams had four of the six points for A&M.
The Lady Vols pushed the lead out to a then game-high seven points with just over three minutes played in the second half. Texas A&M responded eight of the next ten points to cut the Tennessee lead to just two points with 15:07 to play.
Tennessee had pushed the lead out to as many as 12, but the Aggies made a scoring spurt to cut the Lady Vols lead to just four points following eight straight points from Adrienne Pratcher, six of which came from two Pratcher three-pointers. The home team responded scoring seven straight points to push the lead back out to 10 with 5:50 remaining.
The game of streaks continued with A&M scoring eight of the next ten points to once again cut the Lady Vols lead to just four points. Walker made the last four points of the stretch. Following Walker’s last field goal the Aggies were not able to score again as the Lady Vols scored the final six points to seal the victory.
On the night the home-side out-rebounded the Aggies 44-27, including 20 offensive rebounds that led to 18 second chance points. The Tennessee bench outscored the A&M bench by a margin of 18, 25-7.
Joining Bone and Pratcher in double-figures were Williams with 13 points and Walker with 12, Walker had a career high eight assists on the night.
Tennessee was led by senior Kamiko Williams with a career-high 18 points and sophomore Cierra Burdick added a double-double off the bench with 15 points and 14 rebounds. Meighan Simmons added 17 and Bashaara Graves had 14 on the night. Isabelle Harrison chipped in 10 points off the bench.
The Aggies final regular season game will be this Sunday at Reed Arena in College Station against LSU at 1 p.m. (CT) on the SEC Network.
Story courtesy of Texas A&M Athletics