HOUSTON — Maggie Proffitt scored a season-high 26 points – including hitting a season-high five 3-pointers to bring her career total to 222 and put her in 4th place in Southland Conference history – to lead the Sugar Bears past Houston Baptist 80-49 at Sharp Gym Wednesday afternoon.

After getting their previous two wins over HBU by a combined three points, it was a different story on Wednesday as the Sugar Bears – who defeated Northwestern State 76-43 on Jan. 2 – recorded their second Southland win by 30 or more points in a season for the first time in program history. It was the widest margin of victory in the series between the teams since an 82-50 Central Arkansas win in 2010. 

The Sugar Bears (10-4, 2-2 Southland) got out to a 7-0 lead before HBU (3-12, 1-4) retaliated with an 8-point run to go up 8-7. But it would be all Central Arkansas from that point on, with the Sugar Bears scoring 18 of the game's next 19 points to race out to a 25-9 lead and never look back. 

After holding HBU to just four field goals in the first half en route to a 43-18 halftime lead, Central Arkansas would build a lead as large as 30 in the second half as they defeated the Huskies for the fifth time in the last six meetings.

Proffitt topped the 20-point mark for the third time this season, shooting 9 of 17 (52.9 percent) and hit 5 of her 9 attempts from long distance and, in doing so, put herself 4th in league history in 3-point field goals. Her 222 trails only Abilene Christian's Alexis Mason (234) among current Southland players, with Sam Houston State's Britni Martin (311 from 2008-13) and McNeese's Ashlyn Baggett (308, '08-'13) atop the league's all-time leaderboard.

Proffitt, already the program's Division I era record holder by 56, is 2nd overall in Sugar Bear history behind UCA Sports Hall of Famer Carone Harris, who hit 271 during her time as a Division II All-American from 2001-05. 

The 26 points gives Proffitt 1,358 for her career, moving her past Courtney Duever for 2nd in the program's Division I era, trailing only Megan Herbert's 2,329.

Kierra Jordan – who has averaged a team-best 16.3 points per game since becoming eligible eight games ago – finished with 22 points in 19 minutes on Wednesday, going 8 of 11 (72.7 percent) from the field including a 1st quarter in which she was 4 of 5 en route to 13 points,  single-handedly outscoring the Huskies by five in the opening period.

Jordan, Proffitt and Taylor Baudoin each had seven rebounds as the Sugar Bears dominated the Huskies on the boards with a 44-21 advantage. The Sugar Bears converted 13 offensive rebounds into 20 second chance points, and outscored HBU 40-22 in the paint.

Olivia McWilliams, making her first start of the season, had a season-high 11 points on 5 of 8 shooting.

For the game, the Sugar Bears – who entered as the Southland's top and nation's No. 14 team in field goal percentage – shot 52.6 percent, their fourth time in five games to finish above 50 percent from the field.

The Sugar Bears will look to climb above .500 in the league standings and complete a sweep of their road trip on Saturday when they take on Texas A&M-Corpus Christi at 4:30pm.