CONWAY — Central Arkansas had its highest-scoring first half of the season, building a 48-26 halftime lead en route to an easy 85-57 win over Philander Smith on Monday in the Sugar Bears' final game before beginning Southland Conference play on Thursday.
"Any time you win, I'm happy with that," said UCA head coach Sandra Rushing. "The first 18 minutes I thought we looked good, but there are some things we're going to have to take care of before we hit conference play. We only outscored them by six in the second half, which isn't good, but we played a lot of people. But, when you sub, you don't want to lose anything."
The Sugar Bears (6-5) played their entire roster in the win, with 10 players logging double-digit minutes and 11 scoring. Courtney Duever had 21 points and 11 rebounds for her fourth double-double of the season and first since Nov. 26. She also added a season-high five steals in 19 minutes. Junior guard Kelsei Ewings, making her second start of the season, poured in a season-high 19 points – making 15 of 16 at the free throw line. She also tied a season high with six assists. Freshman guard Maggie Proffitt added 10 points, making a pair of 3-pointers, and senior guard Micah Rice added seven rebounds, four points, three assists and two steals.
"I thought Courtney did a good job today, Micah did some good things, and Kelsei Ewings did a great job of coming in and running the offense," Rushing said. "We needed her to play like that. You can see that Brianna Mullins is still sick from bronchitis and was winded and didn't play a lot because she's fighting that."
Mullins played 18 minutes off the bench, scoring eight points and getting four rebounds.
The Sugar Bears shot 45.5 percent from the field and 37.5 percent from 3-point range while holding Philander Smith to 32.3 and 30.0 percent. The Sugar Bears were 29 of 41 from the free throw line – easily their highest output of the season, topping their 15 free throws made against Alcorn State and Indiana.
Philander got 14 points each from Jerricka Scott and Latrice Walton, with Brittany Leonard adding 13. Rubyunnia McHenry had 11 rebounds, six blocks and four steals.
The Sugar Bears did suffer a potential loss late in the game when sophomore guard Jameka Watkins was taken out of the game to undergo concussion tests after a hard collision.
"We're hoping she's alright," Rushing said. "We're counting on her, but if she has a concussion she won't be available for our first two conference games this weekend. She's been playing well for us. She knows what I want, I love her defense. She anticipates well and plays hard. We hope to have her, but we just hope she's OK."
The Sugar Bears begin Southland Conference play on Thursday with Texas A&M-Corpus Christi at 5:30, then host Houston Baptist on Saturday at 2 p.m.
