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Contributed by: Lance Fleming, ACU Associate Director of Athletics for Media Relations
ABILENE - Through the first eight games of the Southland Conference women's basketball season, the ACU Wildcats had answered every challenge. Saturday at Moody Coliseum, they put an exclamation point on an undefeated first half with a 90-62 demolition of the Lamar Cardinals.
The Wildcats played their best home game of the season and one of their best games all year in a contest that was decided by a 19-0 run in the first quarter and a 20-7 run late in the third quarter.
The win is the 14th straight by the Wildcats, who improve to 18-2 overall and 9-0 in the league. The win also matches ACU's conference win total from last season and assures that they'll be in first place in the league when the second half of conference play begins Thursday in Beaumont against Lamar.
"This was our best game at home all season," ACU head coach Julie Goodenough, who moved to 40 games over .500 in her ACU career (73-33). "We've played great on the road and then come home and played a little bit sluggishly. We wanted to show our home crowd how we can really play and I thought we did that."
ACU junior guard Alexis Mason put on her usual show with a second straight double-double with 17 points and a career-best 13 rebounds to go along with seven assists and one steal in 35 minutes. In a bid to capture her fourth straight Southland Conference Player of the Week honor, Mason finished the week with 18 points and 11 rebounds against Houston Baptist in Wednesday night's win and another 17 points Saturday.
"She's so focused on being the best player she can be right now," Goodenough said of Mason. "She and our other guards did a great job of being rebounders, and they did a terrific job handling the ball against Lamar's pressure defense."
The game was never close after the Wildcats broke the game open with a 19-0 run that catapulted them from a 6-5 deficit to a 24-6 lead with 2:58 left in the opening quarter. The Wildcats drilled four straight 3-pointers to kick-start the run - by Whitney Swinford, Suzzy Dimba, Dimba again and Mason in successive order - to make it a 17-6 game.
Dimba - who was terrific as well with 17 points, six rebounds, four assists and two steals in just 22 minutes - hit a layup on a feed from Mason and then Mason buried a layup before Sydney Shelstead converted a three-point play with 2:58 left in the first quarter to put her team up 24-6. ACU's lead would never drop below nine points the rest of the afternoon and would swell to as many as 35 points (89-54 on a 3-pointer by McKenzie Martin) with 2:39 left in the game.
Swinford had one of her best shooting games of the season, connecting on 6 of 13 from the field, including 5 of 11 from 3-point range, to finish with a team-high 18 points. Those five 3-pointers are the second-most she's hit in a game this season (behind the six she had in ACU's Dec. 5 win over Eastern Michigan), and they're the most she's hit in nine conference games.
She also now has 215 career 3-pointers to move to within 25 of overtaking ACU's all-time leader in 3-point field goals, Ashley King, who made 239 from 2002-06.
Sara Williamson came off the bench to score a career-high 13 points on 3 of 3 shooting from the field (2 of 2 from 3-point range), while Shelstead finished with nine points and seven rebounds.
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ABILENE - Through the first eight games of the Southland Conference women's basketball season, the ACU Wildcats had answered every challenge. Saturday at Moody Coliseum, they put an exclamation point on an undefeated first half with a 90-62 demolition of the Lamar Cardinals.
The Wildcats played their best home game of the season and one of their best games all year in a contest that was decided by a 19-0 run in the first quarter and a 20-7 run late in the third quarter.
The win is the 14th straight by the Wildcats, who improve to 18-2 overall and 9-0 in the league. The win also matches ACU's conference win total from last season and assures that they'll be in first place in the league when the second half of conference play begins Thursday in Beaumont against Lamar.
"This was our best game at home all season," ACU head coach Julie Goodenough, who moved to 40 games over .500 in her ACU career (73-33). "We've played great on the road and then come home and played a little bit sluggishly. We wanted to show our home crowd how we can really play and I thought we did that."
ACU junior guard Alexis Mason put on her usual show with a second straight double-double with 17 points and a career-best 13 rebounds to go along with seven assists and one steal in 35 minutes. In a bid to capture her fourth straight Southland Conference Player of the Week honor, Mason finished the week with 18 points and 11 rebounds against Houston Baptist in Wednesday night's win and another 17 points Saturday.
"She's so focused on being the best player she can be right now," Goodenough said of Mason. "She and our other guards did a great job of being rebounders, and they did a terrific job handling the ball against Lamar's pressure defense."
The game was never close after the Wildcats broke the game open with a 19-0 run that catapulted them from a 6-5 deficit to a 24-6 lead with 2:58 left in the opening quarter. The Wildcats drilled four straight 3-pointers to kick-start the run - by Whitney Swinford, Suzzy Dimba, Dimba again and Mason in successive order - to make it a 17-6 game.
Dimba - who was terrific as well with 17 points, six rebounds, four assists and two steals in just 22 minutes - hit a layup on a feed from Mason and then Mason buried a layup before Sydney Shelstead converted a three-point play with 2:58 left in the first quarter to put her team up 24-6. ACU's lead would never drop below nine points the rest of the afternoon and would swell to as many as 35 points (89-54 on a 3-pointer by McKenzie Martin) with 2:39 left in the game.
Swinford had one of her best shooting games of the season, connecting on 6 of 13 from the field, including 5 of 11 from 3-point range, to finish with a team-high 18 points. Those five 3-pointers are the second-most she's hit in a game this season (behind the six she had in ACU's Dec. 5 win over Eastern Michigan), and they're the most she's hit in nine conference games.
She also now has 215 career 3-pointers to move to within 25 of overtaking ACU's all-time leader in 3-point field goals, Ashley King, who made 239 from 2002-06.
Sara Williamson came off the bench to score a career-high 13 points on 3 of 3 shooting from the field (2 of 2 from 3-point range), while Shelstead finished with nine points and seven rebounds.
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