CONWAY — After rallying from a nine-point deficit in the first half to head into the locker room tied at the half, Central Arkansas utilized a combination of defense, hustle and free throws in the second half to pull away from Austin Peay for a 63-54 win in the Farris Center on Tuesday.
"I'm really excited about our effort today," said UCA head coach Sandra Rushing. "We came out a little sluggish and dug ourselves a hole, but we fought back and I'm really proud of our effort to fight back and get a win. Our goal coming in was to keep them under 60, and we kept them at 54, and a lot of that was the result of our hustle. You're always a little concerned about the focus of the team comig back from Christmas, but I felt like once we goer back in the flow, we really came out and did a good job in the second half."
The Sugar Bears (7-5) forced the Lady Govs (3-10) into 11 second-half turnovers which they converted into nine points, and added six second-chance points off of seven offensive rebounds in the period. After getting just two free throw attempts in the first half, the Sugar Bears made 11 in the second half while holding the Lady Govs to only four attempts, resulting in an eight-point advantage from the line in the half.
After falling behind by five midway through the second half, the Sugar Bears went on a 9-0 run over a four-minute period to grab the momentum and what would prove to be a lead for the duration of the game. The turning point came with 8:21 to play when
Raquel Logan grabbed one of her three offensive and seven total rebounds in 18 minutes of action, and put it back up and in for a 44-43 Sugar Bear lead.
Though UCA would never trail the rest of the way, the Lady Govs had cut it to one again at 47-46, but
Kendara Watts followed her own missed 3-pointer – getting an unobstructed path all the way to the basket – with a putback to push the lead to three and begin a 9-2 run that would put the game out of reach for Austin Peay.
"I thought Kendara had an excellent game," Rushing said of Watts, who finished with a game-high 19 points, plus 5 rebounds, an assist and a block. "Not just offensively, but defensively too. I thought she did a tremendous job on the defensive end of the floor."
Watts led four Sugar Bears in double figures scoring, with
Brianna Mullins adding 15,
Maggie Proffitt 13 and
Kelsey McClure 10. Mullins added 8 rebounds, and helped to keep Austin Peay's leading scorer Tiasha Gray to nearly nine points below her season average. Gray had 28 in the Lady Govs' 81-60 win over the Sugar Bears last year.
Proffitt also had eight rebounds – her most as a Sugar Bear – with seven coming in a first half in which she also had 10 points. McClure, the team's leading rebounder at 6.5 per game, had seven rebounds and dished out a game-high six assists.
"I thought Bri did a tremendous job defensively," Rushing said. "She had a major challenge, and did a good job on her. Maggie, you look at her rebounds and she had eight. We talk to her all the time about you don't want to be one-dimensional, and sometimes people think of her strictly as a shooter, but she showed today she's very capable of doing more than one thing. And McClure gave great effort. She brings so much to the table and did a good job of pushing the ball."
The win was the third straight for the Sugar Bears, and their first in four tries against an Ohio Valley Conference opponent this season. It was the third time this season the Sugar Bears have had four players reach double figures in scoring, but first against an NCAA Division I team. The 54 points scored by Austin Peay was 18 points below its season average and its lowest total of the season.
UCA will now turn its focus to Southland Conference play, traveling to Abilene Christian for the league opener on Saturday before returning to the Farris Center next Tuesday for the conference home opener against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi.
