The women’s basketball team is in the third year of the Western Athletic Conference (WAC) and NCAA Division I. They hold a record for WAC of 1-5, with an overall record of 7-10.
On Thursday, Jan. 19, the Tarleton Women’s basketball team fought hard against the Sam Houston Bearkats.
Coach Misty Wilson leads the Tarleton Women’s Basketball team. Wilson came to Tarleton as a student in 1998. She was offered the chance to compete in a basketball game at practice, where the opportunity turned into a Hall of Fame four-year basketball player. Wilson took over as head coach in 2014 and has led the basketball program through the first two of four years of transition to the NCAA Division I level as a member of a WAC in 2020-21.
The game started with Mayra Caicedo (#24), playing her position as a guard. Mayra is a senior at Tarleton, who came from Buga, Colombia. Before coming to Tarleton, she went to Arkansas-Little Rock, where she received All-Sun Belt Conference Third Team honors her both years there. After finishing her junior year, she completed the season ranked third in the nation.
Along the side with her is Teresa Da Silva (#4), who played as a guard. Da Silva played for five years, including serving as team captain at Barking Abbey School. She went to Arizona Western College (2020-2022), where she was named NJCAA All-American Honorable Mention, Region Finals MVP, First Team All-Conference, and First Team All-Region.
Mason Jones (#11), is a sophomore at Tarleton and plays the position of a guard. Before Tarleton, she went to Panhandle High School, where she earned All-District, and TABC All-Region team honors for all four seasons and was a 2-2A Offensive and Defensive player of the years 2019-20. During her freshman year at Tarleton, she played 14 games with a career-high of seven points on 3-of-7 shooting, four assists, four rebounds, and her first collegiate points.
Playing forward, Emilia Axelsson (#31) is a junior at Tarleton but originally came from Ragunda, Sweden. Axelsson went to Clarendon College where she received Western Junior College Athletic Conference (WJAC) honorable mention accolades. She ranked third in WJAC in 3-point field goal percentage and rebounding, where her field goal was 10th-best in the conference. In her sophomore year at Tarleton, she had a season-high six points against Weber State and made her first Texan point at Arkansas.
As the center, Nyajah Mitchels (#21) is a junior at Tarleton. She played two seasons for UNCW as she snatched a career-high eight boards and was named to the Colonial Athletic Association Commissioner’s Honor Roll at the end of her freshman campaign. In her sophomore year at Tarleton, she led the team with her 51.8 shooting percentage with only seven qualified WAC players owning a better field goal percentage of the year.
Tarleton is 11th in the latest WAC Resume Seeding System and Sam Houston is 8th. Dating back to 1981, this is the fifth all-time meeting. Tarleton has won three straight, winning both last seasons, including a win at the Wisdom Gym of 83-63. In the fourth quarter of the game, Texans attempted 14 free throws which are their most attempts in a frame since Dec. 6. Tarleton is now at 21.2 free throw attempts per game, fourth best in the WAC. This game features two of the top-10 scores in the WAC, with Teresa Da Silva in sitch at 15.1 points per game, and Sam Houston’s Chyna Allen in ninth at 13.9 points per game. As the game ended Tarleton received 48 percent of the field goals and a score of 66-81.
