No. 5 Lady T-Birds win Region V championship

BROWNWOOD, Texas — The New Mexico Junior College women's basketball program has done it again.

For the third time in four years, the fifth-ranked Lady Thunderbirds have taken home the Region V Tournament championship and earned a spot in the NJCAA National Tournament – this time beating Western Texas College 65-52 Saturday at Brownwood Coliseum.

NMJC now owns regional titles in 2012, 2014 and 2015, has won four straight Western Junior College Athletic Conference titles and is 105-19 over that four-year span.

But NMJC coach Drew Sanders isn't ready to call it a dynasty.

"I don't really like the word dynasty more than we've just become a good program," Sanders said. "That is a tribute to our players, to the administration and the people in the community that allow us to do this."

The Lady T-Birds (28-3) begin the NJCAA National Tournament on March 16 in Salina, Kan.

In Saturday's contest it was the post combo of 6-foot-1 Angelica de Paulo and 6-foot-2 Antoina Robinson that paced NMJC in the second half to victory as the duo scored 23 of the Lady T-Birds' 30 second-half points – helping NMJC outscore Western Texas (17-14) by 10 in the half.

de Paulo, the WJCAC MVP, finished with 26 points, four rebounds and four assists while Robinson had 12 points and four blocks.

NMJC held a 35-32 lead at the half before Western Texas freshman and Lovington graduate Jocelyn Jeffrey scored to open the second half to cut the Lady T-Bird lead to one.

That's when a de Paulo bucket ignited an 11-0 run for NMJC capped by a Robinson jumper with 13:58 left to make it 46-34 Lady T-Birds.

Western Texas cut the lead twice to six points – the last time with 5:45 left in the game.

However, de Paulo from the elbow hit a cutting Robinson for a bucket to build the lead back to eight and the Lady T-Birds cruised from there.

Along with de Paulo and Robinson, Kelsey Criner had nine points while Viktoriia Kotilevskaia had seven and Nycolle Smith had six.