Although it took the Howard Payne University women’s basketball team two minutes to score their first basket, the game was theirs the whole time in a 80-67 win over Texas Lutheran University.

Coming into the game, the Lady Jackets were two games out of first place behind Hardin-Simmons University. At the end, with their win over TLU and HSU’s loss to the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor, the Lady Jackets now sit only one game back with three games remaining in their conference schedule.

Twelve Lady Jackets scored on the night. Leading them was Clarissa Krum with 13 points and Brittany Roberson with 12. Jasmin Thomas also had a good all around game highlighted by four steals, three assists, six points, and a block shot.

HPU opened up their biggest lead of the first half with 4:49 remaining when they went up 13 points off a Roberson three-pointer. At the half the score was 34-22.

The Lady Jackets came out in the second half with a 7-0 run that extended their lead out to 19.

TLU would try to chip away at the lead, but would never come closer than an eight point deficit with 13:26 remaining, 45-37.

The Lady Jackets scored 37 points off of 25 TLU turnovers. Between both teams there were 69 free throw attempts in the game. But neither team shot very well from the line, with HPU making 69 percent, and the Bulldogs making 67 percent.

Tamisha Thompson led TLU with 20 points, five rebounds, two blocks, three assists and two steals. Lynn Lumpkin-Boozer also had a good game scoring seven points, and grabbing 11 rebounds.

HPU only turned the ball over 15 times, and accompanied that with 15 assists. Rebounding between the teams was even at 41 a piece.

The Lady Jackets record goes to 15-7 overall and 12-6 in the American Southwest Conference. TLU falls to 7-15 overall and 6-12 in the ASC.

The next game for the Lady Jackets will be at 1 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 12 at the Brownwood Coliseum, against Schreiner University.