Box Score RICHARDSON, TEXAS (11.30.09) – The starting trio of seniors Chelsea Edwards, Rachel Addison and Lauren Hale showed that experience counts Monday night as the UT Dallas women's basketball team won its second straight American Southwest Conference game on its home court, defeating a challenge from Concordia University, 80-71.

Edwards and Addison poured in 21 points apiece while Hale notched a double-double with 14 points and 11 rebounds to go with a pair of blocked shots. In fact, UTD (4-1, 2-0) got all but 10 points of its scoring from the starting five, which included junior Tawni Ichimura and sophomore Lyndsey Smith, as UTD struggled to put away the Tornados (1-1, 1-1) when they had the chance early.

"It's [the seniors] last year and you can tell by the way they are starting to play," Coach Polly Thomason said afterwards. "I'm very disappointed in our bench play tonight, but its nice to see our starters step up."

The starting five were continually called upon to rally the troops. After UTD jumped out to a quick 6-0 lead, Concordia tied things up at 6-6 five minutes in and kept things close throughout the first period. UTD did build up an early 25-14 lead by going on a 19-8 run, but the Tornados trimmed that down to five (36-31) by halftime.

The fouls along with 13 first-half turnovers kept Concordia in the game. Despite hitting just eight first-half shots from the field, Concordia took advantage of 13 first-half UTD fouls to score 14 points at the free-throw line. They were credited as well with scoring 18 points following 16 Comet turnovers before intermission.To counter the miscues, UTD forced 25 turnovers themselves and finished the night scoring 32 points off Concordia turnovers.

After halftime, Concordia was able to chip into the Comet lead and eventually tied the score five minutes in. After pulling to withing three points (38-35) early, the Tornados went on 16-7 run and actually built a 51-47 lead with 13:23 remaining. But a Hale 3-pointer regained the lead for good and sent UTD on a 10-2 run that put the Comets back in control at 62-53 with still 7:12 left on the clock.  Despite letting CTX get as close as 70-66 with 2:39 left, moved the lead back out to nine points (78-69) with :35 seconds left on a pair of Ichimura free throws.

During the final minutes, the Comet junior also came up with a pair of key offensive rebounds that kept the ball in UTD's hands. She finished the game by coming up with UTD's 17th and final steal with just :14 left.

""We've played two of the better teams from the West Division to open conference play, so to get two victories at home is huge," Thomason said.

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