ABILENE, Texas — In a battle of the Southland Conference's top defense and top offense, defense won out on Sunday as Central Arkansas stifled the league's highest-scoring offense – keeping Abilene Christian more than 17 points below its season average – en route to a 66-60 win on the road at Moody Coliseum in the conference opener for both teams.
The Sugar Bears (8-5, 1-0) won their fourth consecutive game and their fourth straight Southland opener by holding the Wildcats (7-4, 0-1) below both their season field goal and 3-point percentages, keeping ACU to just 39.7 percent from the field and 25 percent from long range. ACU's Alexis Mason and Whitney West, the Wildcats' scoring leaders this season at a combined 27.1 points per game, were held to a combined 13 points on 5-of-23 shooting.
Conversely, the Sugar Bears were well above their season shooting percentages, connecting on 43.8 percent of their field goals (including 50 percent in the 2nd half), and 46.2 percent from 3-point range. The Sugar Bears also had a decided advantage at the free throw line, shooting 18 of 26 (69.2 percent) compared to just 7 of 13 (53.8) for ACU.
"I'm very happy to start off conference with a win on the road," said UCA head coach Sandra Rushing. "I thought we played extremely hard – maybe not always really smart, but we played very hard and fought and however we get it we're happy to get a road win."
After a tightly contested first half that saw the Sugar Bears take a 29-28 lead into the locker room after a pair of
Brianna Mullins free throws with five seconds left, UCA was able to break away in the second half – building a lead as large as 14 thanks in part to
Maggie Proffitt's offensive outburst as she scored 19 of her game-high 22 points after halftime.
Leading by one early in the second half, the Sugar Bears went on a 13-2 run – with Proffitt scoring eight of those points –to take a commanding 51-39 lead with 9:37 remaining. After going up by as many as 14 with 6:12 left, UCA maintained a double-digit lead until 2:38 left when Lizzy Dimba knocked down a 3 to cut the ACU deficit to 7. ACU would never draw any closer than four as the Wildcats were dealt their first home loss of the season after starting 5-0.
Proffitt, the Southland's leader in 3-pointers this season, knocked down three more on Sunday and was perfect in seven free throw attempts as she tied her season scoring high. Mullins, who had 25 points in last year's win at ACU, continued her success against the Wildcats with 18 points, 6 rebounds, 5 assists and 3 steals.
Brittany Agee had 8 points, 2 rebounds, 2 steals and a block in 17 minutes,
Kendara Watts had 7 points and 7 rebounds, and
Terai Sadler had 7 points and 6 rebounds.
Junior guard
Jameka Watkins, seeing her first action of the season after missing the first 12 games of the season due to a stress fracture, played 18 minutes and had a point, three rebounds, an assist and helped provide defensive pressure on the ACU perimeter threats.
Lizzy Dimba had 19 points to lead ACU, hitting 3 of 4 from 3-point range. Coming into the game, she was 3-for-21 for the season. Sydney Shelstead had 15 points and 11 rebounds.
UCA will now return home to play its next two games at the Farris Center, hosting Texas A&M-Corpus Christi at 5:30 Tuesday and defending league champion Stephen F. Austin at 7 p.m. Thursday.
