It’s not very often a team can shoot under 40 percent for a game and still dominate, but when you hold your opponent to just over 30 percent shooting, a victory will come a little easier.

The Iowa State women’s basketball team played solid defense against Texas A&M to avoid its fourth straight loss and ended up with a 58-46 win at Hilton Coliseum.

“We struggled to shoot but we rebounded the ball better and I thought we defended really well,” head coach Bill Fennelly said. “They weren’t scoring, they weren’t getting second-chance points. We’re weren’t scoring but they weren’t either.”

The Cyclones added to a nine-point halftime lead when they opened up the second half on a 9-3 scoring run.

Lindsey Wilson led all scorers with 18 points, including three of five from downtown.

“Lindsey took ten shots and all of them were good shots,” Fennelly said. “That’s the thing with Lindsey, if she takes good shots, that really affects her game and her teammates.”

Wilson came out firing to give Iowa State a comfortable first-half lead with 14 points at the mid-way point.

Despite turning the ball over 14 times in the game, the Cyclones were able to out-rebound the Aggies 46-31, an area the team has struggled with all year.

“They’re such an aggressive defensive team, but if you are patient and take care of the ball, you’re going to get good shots,” Wilson said.

“They gamble a lot on defense and we tried to do a good job of making them pay for it.”

Three other Cyclones finished in double figures with Lisa Kriener scoring 11 points down low and Mary Fox and Anne O’Neil each adding 10 points. Fox pulled down a game-high 14 rebounds while Kriener nabbed nine.

“I think people are stepping it up and shooting more,” Wilson said. “We have so many good shooters on this team, I think they’re shooting with some confidence.”

“We spread it around pretty good, took good care of the ball,” Fennelly added.

Toccara Williams, leading scorer for the Aggies, was held to just 11 points on four of ten shooting. She had just two points at the half.

“We junked them up a little bit,” Fennelly said about his team’s defense. “They’re not a team that has great perimeter shooting and we really wanted to pack it in the best we could. It was a good team effort.”

Texas A&M, which moves to 10-13 and 3-9 in the Big 12, struggled scoring the whole game against a mostly zone defense.

They made just four of 15 from beyond the arc and shot right around 30 percent for both halves.

“I think we kind of forced them to take more outside shots than they’re used to,” Wilson said.

Iowa State, 10-13 and 5-7 in the Big 12, desperately needed a win after dropping three straight. The team will hit the road to face Oklahoma over the weekend.

“It’s nice to see them smile; they’ve worked really hard,” Fennelly said.