The UTRGV Vaqueros women's basketball team took down the Lamar Cardinals on Thursday night 75-53.

The Vaqueros dominated from start to finish against a Lamar team that came into the evening third in the Southland Conference standings, one spot behind the Vaqueros.

The Vaqueros finished with six players scoring at least nine points in the win. Jalayah Ingram led the way with 14 points and 9 assists while Ivy Brown added 12 points off the bench in just 19 minutes.

"We played really hard," Ingram said after the win. "We came in knowing that it was going to be a dog fight. At the end of the day, we still just tried to play extremely hard knowing that we're in second [place] so we're kind of in a battle.

With the win, UTRGV ensures that Lamar won't own a head-to-head tiebreaker between the two teams. That helps the Vaqueros in their chase for a double bye in the Southland Conference tournament which is given to the top two seeds in the conference. The team is two games ahead of Stephen F. Austin and Lamar for the No. 2 seed with six games left on the schedule.

"[Coach Hackerott] said be the hammer not the nail," Ingram said of what the message was from assistant coach Kevin Hackerott before the game.

"We were the hammer today," Vaqueros head coach Lane Lord added after Ingram's comments.

The Vaqueros will host Stephen F. Austin on Saturday at 2:00 p.m. in Edinburg.