Nacogdoches, Texas — With the two teams playing for at least a share of the Southland Conference regular season championship, Stephen F. Austin jumped out to a 5-0 lead in the first minute and Central Arkansas never drew any closer as the Sugar Bears fell 61-41 to the Ladyjacks at Johnson Coliseum on Saturday.
"I don't know what to say," said UCA head coach Sandra Rushing. "I'm disappointed in our fight. We're not executing our offense, and you saw our defense. We even tried going to zone and that didn't work for us either. I just don't know what to say. It's just very disappointing."
With the loss, the Sugar Bears (18-11, 12-6 Southland) enter next week's Southland Conference tournament as the No. 3 seed, and await the Texas A&M-Corpus Christi-McNeese State winner on Friday. The Ladyjacks (19-11, 13-5) will be the No. 2 seed with Lamar claiming the top seed by way of tiebreaker.
Courtney Duever got her 14th double-double of the season and 10th in conference play with 13 points and 15 rebounds plus three blocks, but not much else went the Sugar Bears' way as they shot just 28.3 percent from the field – going 17-for-60, including 0-for-15 from 3-point range – and were 7 of 17 (41.2 percent) from the free throw line.
The Ladyjacks were only 21 of 59 (35.6 percent) from the field, but were 16-for-19 (84.2 percent) at the free throw line and were 3 of 8 (37.5 percent) from beyond the arc.
The Sugar Bears went nearly 12 minutes without a field goal in the first half as the Ladyjacks built a 31-15 halftime lead. After starting with the first five points of the second half, the Sugar Bears never could trim the deficit to single digits and the Ladyjacks responded with a 10-2 run to push the lead to 18 with 13 minutes remaining.
UCA trimmed its deficit to 12 again with 8:00 to go, but once again the Ladyjacks had an answer – this time putting together a 12-2 run over the next five minutes as their lead swelled to 22 at 58-36 with 2:34 to play.
Senior guard Micah Rice had 10 points for the Sugar Bears, her most since scoring 11 at Nicholls on Feb. 1, and had two of the Sugar Bears' three assists with Duever getting the other.
Porsha Roberts led the Ladyjacks with 20 points, including a 10-of-11 performance at the free throw line, while Tierany Henderson had a game-high 16 rebounds. Daylyn Harris had 10 points for SFA.
