SAN MARCOS, TEXAS — Central Arkansas head coach Matt Daniel celebrated his 35th birthday on Wednesday. His present? The Sugar Bears' first-ever win at Texas State.
The Sugar Bears got a season-high 28 points and 14 rebounds from Megan Herbert, and Nakeia Guiden had 11 points and a career-high 10 rebounds for her first career double-double as UCA outscored the Bobcats 43-32 in the second half to pull away for a 74-60 win at Strahan Coliseum.
"I'm just pleased to get the win," Daniel said. "We shared the ball better in the second half, Westin Taylor stepped up and hit some big shots, and we did a lot of things well – things you can't see on the stat sheet or really hear on the radio. We were cutting down passing distances, making backdoor cuts, things that are hard to portray. Nakeia having 10 rebounds wasn't bad, and obviously Megan is Megan – she always saves us. She's awesome. But we went in the locker room and I told them who really saved us was Destinee (Rogers) and Westin. They absolutely saved us."
The Sugar Bears (15-8, 7-3 Southland) trailed for the majority of the first half, falling behind as many as 10, but overtook the Bobcats (8-14, 3-6) in the final minute before halftime and never looked back – leading the rest of the way for their second straight victory over the Bobcats.
After building a lead as big as 12 early in the second half, the Sugar Bears saw their lead cut in half late when a pair of free throws from Diamond Ford made it 60-54 with just over four minutes to play.
UCA quickly reassumed momentum on back-to-back 3-pointers 40 seconds apart by Taylor, who scored all 11 of her points in the second half with nine coming in a two-minute span. After another score by Ford, Taylor drilled her third from long range on the Sugar Bears' next possession to put UCA ahead 69-56 with 2:01 left.
Herbert found Rogers open underneath the basket for a layup on UCA's next possession, then hit three straight free throws to push the Sugar Bears' lead to 18, 74-56, with a minute left before the Bobcats scored the game's final four points.
The Bobcats came out strong, forcing the Sugar Bears into 11 turnovers in the game's first 11 minutes as they built a double-digit lead, but UCA settled in and committed just five over the final 29 minutes and outscored Texas State 63-39 the rest of the way.
"[Texas State coach Suzanne Fox] just told me coming down the hallway after the game, 'we're trying to get you to play Bobcat-crazy ball'," Daniel said. "Well, I felt crazy the first 20 minutes. We told our team that Texas State is never going to be out of it, but you're never out of it either because of the way they play. We're resilient, we settled in and once we did we didn't have much trouble."
In addition to winning the turnover battle 23-16, the Sugar Bears held a 41-33 rebounding advantage and scored 20 points at the free throw line (in 29 attempts – 69 percent) to just 10 for the Bobcats, who were 10-for-16 (62.5 percent).
Ford had 23 points to lead the Bobcats, who also got 11 from Verinus Kalu. Three Bobcats – Kalu, Demi Clench and Chika Ofoegbu – combined for 26 of the Bobcats' 33 rebounds.
Courtney Duever had 10 points for the Sugar Bears, her sixth time in seven games to reach double figures in scoring. Guiden led the Sugar Bears with five assists and also added three steals.
The win moves the Sugar Bears to 3-0 against the Southland's West Division and 3-1 on the road in conference play. They'll have a chance for their fourth on the road when they travel to East Division leader McNeese on Saturday. The Sugar Bears defeated the Cowgirls 74-73 in overtime in Conway in the first meeting.
