PORTALES, N.M. ­– The Eastern New Mexico women's basketball team mounted a late rally but fell just short, suffering a 58-51 loss to West Texas A&M Saturday afternoon.

The Hounds forced 19 turnovers and outscored the Lady Buffs 19-7 in the final quarter of play but were unable to regain the lead. Sophomore Zamorye Cox finished with a team-high 14 points and knocked down three clutch shots from beyond the arch in the waning minutes of the game.

Senior Natalie DeLonge recorded ten points and also added a block and a steal while sophomore Kamirah Decker finished with eight points on an efficient four for five shooting performance. Junior Alivia Lewis helped create scoring chances for her teammates and dished out four assists from the post while junior Chelsea Hunter led the rebounding effort for the Greyhounds, corralling a team-high six rebounds.

Eastern jumped out to a 6-0 lead to begin the game before WT answered with seven consecutive points of their own. Cox would swipe her lone steal of the game on the following possession and converted the fast break layup to put the Hounds back up 8-7. The Lady Buffs rattled off nine straight points to close out the first quarter to gain a 17-8 advantage.

The Green and Silver struggled to break through WT's tough zone defense and shot just 26.7 percent from the field in the second quarter. The Lady Buffs continued to feed the ball to their post players and finished the first half with 22 points in the paint and took a 33-18 lead into the locker room.

The Hounds came out of the break revitalized but traded baskets with the Buffs for the majority of the third. The High Plains refused to give up despite trailing by as much as 20 points and turned in a dominant fourth quarter.

Eastern held their opponents to just two made field goals while converting on 41.2 percent of their attempts as they put together their best quarter of play in the final ten minutes of the game. With 1:47 left on the clock, Hunter fed the ball to Cox who buried a deep three-pointer to trim the deficit to eight. The Buffs went just three for eight from the charity stripe in the fourth but did enough to hold off the streaking Greyhounds.

The Hounds will look to capture their first win in 2020 next week when they travel to Western New Mexico on Thursday before taking the court against UT Permian Basin on Saturday.