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Contributed by Lance Fleming, Associate Director of Athletics for Media Relations
HOUSTON - The ACU Wildcats blew out to a 15-0 lead Wednesday night and were never even tested in a 76-55 blowout win over Houston Baptist in a Southland Conference women's basketball game at Sharp Gym.
The win pushes the Wildcats - ranked No. 20 in this week's collegeinsider.com mid-major poll - to 23-3 overall and 14-1 in the Southland Conference. HBU, meanwhile, falls to 12-13 and 7-8 as they fell to 0-6 all-time against the Wildcats.
ACU will play its final three games of the regular season at home - starting with Saturday's 2 p.m. contest against New Orleans - as they continue their quest to win the Southland Conference regular-season championship and earn that champions automatic bid to the Women's NIT.
The Wildcats looked every part a tournament team Wednesday night as they tore apart the Huskies from the outset. Junior forward Suzzy Dimba scored the game's first eight points (six of them on drives to the basket) before Alexis Mason buried a 3-pointer, forcing a timeout from HBU. The offensive onslaught continued, though, as ACU ran its lead to 15-0 at one point before finally settling for a 21-6 lead at the end of the first quarter.
"We got off to a great start against a good team playing at home," said ACU head coach Julie Goodenough, whose team improved to 12-3 on the road this season. "Suzzy set the tone for us by being very aggressive in driving to the basket early in the game. The rest of our team fed off that and got us going."
Junior guard Alexis Mason - making her case for Southland Conference Player of the Year honors - took over in the second quarter for ACU as she had nine points to help the Wildcats run out to a 44-21 halftime lead. But it wasn't just the starters that contributed to the cause. The Wildcats' bench scored 11 points in the second quarter with McKenzie Martin scoring five with two free throws and one 3-pointer.
Mason fought through illness to play 31 minutes and score a game-high 23 points on 9 of 12 shooting, including 4 of 5 from 3-point range.
"Alexis was great (Wednesday night),": Goodenough said. "She's been really sick, and I talked to her a lot today about maybe needing her to play 40 minutes. I asked her if she could do it and she said she would do whatever the team needed. She's had some great performances this year, and the foundation of that is that she's so selfless."
The final 20 minutes was merely a formality as ACU never let its lead dip below 21 points and saw it climb to as many as 27 points three times in the fourth quarter. Goodenough was able to give some quality time to the reserves and get the starters some rest before the Wildcats play their final three games.
Mason had 23 points, eight rebounds and three steals, while Dimba finished with 14 points, six rebounds, one assist, two blocks and one steal. Martin finished with 10 points off the bench as the reserves scored 22 points in the game.
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