The UAM Cotton Blossom basketball team fell Tuesday night to an undefeated Southwest Baptist team, who improved it's record to 5-0. The Blossoms were handed the 78-77 loss when Lady Bearcat Erika Souza hit a lay-up with 0:00.7 remaining.

   The Cotton Blossoms, who are currently on an early season three game losing streak, in bounded the ball with 0:32.5 on the clock and with a one pointlead. Junior guard of Plainview, TX, Addie Lees, controlled the ball then penetrated to the goal for a lay-up that missed off the backboard. The Lady Bearcats grabbed the ball and used two passes to get the ball in the hands of Souza for the fast break lay-up.

   The shot came with about seven seconds remaining on the shot clock. In women's play, they have a 30 second shot clock, whereas in men's play, they have 35 seconds. The Cotton Blossoms used two timeouts in drawing up a play to get a shot off with the remaining 0:00.7 on the clock. The ball was passed into Lees and with one dribble, the clock expired.

   Almeli da Silva, Junior of Sao Paulo, Brazil, had a team high seven boards along with 14 points. Dodd City, TX Junior guard, Gemma Gibson, shot 4-7 from long range, 8-8 from the charity stripe, and added four assists to go along with her game high 26 points. Lees and da Silva both added 14 points of their own.

   UAM was up as much as seven, two times early in the game. With 10:13 left in the game, the Lady Bearcats went up by six on a Rachel Graves lay-up. The Lady Bearcats shot 10-20 from the three point line and shot a total of 44.4 percent on the night. In the loss, the Cotton Blossoms shot 41 percent from the field and 81.8 percent from the free throw line.

   The loss puts the Cotton Blossoms at 1-3 on the season. The next home game is scheduled for Dec. 2 when the Cotton Blossoms host Central Baptist. The game has a 6:00 PM start time here at the Steelman Fieldhouse.