HOUSTON – Tia Jackson and Destini Texada scored 29 combined points, but it wasn't enough as the HBU women's basketball team lost to visiting South Dakota, 66-48, Saturday evening at Sharp Gym.

Jackson led HBU (3-24, 1-11 GWC) with 16 points, as Texada finished with 13. Texada led the Huskies on the glass, grabbing nine rebounds. Mele Leasau tied a career-high with nine points and grabbed five rebounds.

Stacia Robertson recorded game highs with 20 points and 14 rebounds for the Coyotes (19-10, 10-2). Amber Hegge scored 13 and Jodie Boss recorded 12.

“There's a reason why South Dakota is second in our conference,” said head coach Mary Gleason. They are a very good, well-coached team who use their strength. I'm proud of our effort, for two nights in a row, we've played 40 minutes of hard basketball. Being down a player, we still competed and played hard. We were much improved from our last outing in South Dakota. We're looking forward to getting a couple of practices in, heading out to Utah and getting another crack at them.”

South Dakota scored first as Tempestt Wilson hit a three-pointer 14 seconds into the game. The Huskies rattled off five straight on a jumper by Leasau and a three by Megan Green as the Huskies led 5-3 with 18:58 left in the opening half.

South Dakota used a 9-0 run to jump ahead 12-5 with 16:37 left in the first half. The Huskies scored four straight to trail by three, 12-9, with 14:41 remaining, as two consecutive Husky steals resulted in layups.

HBU continued on a 7-2 run to take a 16-15 lead with 11:10 remaining in the first half, as Jackson scored all seven points. The two teams exchanged baskets as HBU led 18-17 with 10:09 remaining.

A three-pointer by Green gave the Huskies their largest lead of the game thus far, at 21-17, with 8:33 left. This came seconds after the conference's third-leading scorer, Hegge, sat on the bench after getting her second foul.

Boss hit a jumper only to be answered by a layup by Texada. South Dakota went on a 12-0 run to lead by eight, 31-23, with 1:55 remaining in the first half.

The Huskies brought it down to five as Texada hit a layup followed by two free throws by Jackson, but Boss hit a layup with four seconds remaining to give the Coyotes a seven-point lead, 34-27, at halftime.

HBU scored three points to start the second half to find itself down 34-30 with 16:47 remaining.

After a jumper by Texada to cut the deficit to five, 39-34 with 13:59 remaining, the Coyotes went on a 19-5 run in a span of eight minutes, as South Dakota led, 58-39, with 4:57 remaining in the second half.

The closest the Huskies came was 15 points as Ernesta Gricuinaite had a layup and finished the three-point play with a free throw.

The Huskies and Coyotes will meet again in four days, as HBU and USD will play in the Great West Conference Quarterfinals on March 9 at 3:30 pm CST, from the UCCU Center in Orem, Utah.