FLORENCE, Ala. – After keeping it close in the first quarter, the Sugar Bears couldn't contain or keep up with the three-point shooting of North Alabama, falling 78-50 Thursday night. With a quick turnaround, Central Arkansas needs to regroup for Saturday's game, which will carry massive implications for the ASUN Championship seeding.
 
Ruth Balogun was perhaps the brightest spot of the night. Playing 19 minutes off the bench, Balogun had multiple career-highs, logging her first-career double-double with 11 points and 10 rebounds. Randrea Wright had eight points and four assists, while Lashiyah Fowler added eight points with a pair of three-pointers.

Also against North Alabama, Hannah Langhi checked in to play in her 132nd career game, tying Central Arkansas' All-Time record. The fifth year forward finished with six points, six rebounds and a steal in a team-high 27 minutes.
 
Wright opened up the scoring, hitting a midrange jumper to start things off. Fowler hit her three-pointers on back-to-back possessions, helping the Sugar Bears jump out to an early 12-5 lead. From there, North Alabama would close the quarter on a 17-6 run, taking the lead and building it to four points after the first quarter.
 
The teams battled back and forth in the second, with both defenses settling into a rhythm. Lucy Ibeh scored four points on a pair of layups, but the Sugar Bears mostly kept in the game earning trips to the free throw line, whittling the lead down to three points with 2:32 remaining in the quarter on a pair of freebies by Balogun. North Alabama responded to that with back-to-back three-pointers, quickly extending the lead back to nine, sending the game into the halftime break up 10 points, 37-27.
 
Hoping to make some halftime adjustments, the tide only turned for the worse for the Sugar Bears, as the Lions got hot from beyond the arc in the third. After holding North Alabama to five three-pointers in the first half, the Lions connected on five in just the third quarter, recording eight assists on eight field goals. Without shots falling on the other side, the Sugar Bears started falling behind, turning a very manageable deficit into one that seemed a much bigger challenge. The trend continued into the fourth, except in this quarter, the Lions paraded to the free throw line, shooting 14 attempts from the charity stripe in the final period. Balogun, to her credit, scored nine points in the second half, adding five boards to reach her double-double with a second-chance layup with two minutes to go.
 
Freshmen scored 32 of the Sugar Bears' 50 points this evening, accounting for 64 percent of Central Arkansas' scoring. Balogun's double-double gives the Sugar Bears three players with a double-double this season, joining Ibeh and Hannah Langhi. Wright added four assists, her 10^th game with at least four assists. Fowler hit multiple three-pointers for the second time this season, taking sole possession of second place on the team in made triples.
 
With Lipscomb losing to Bellarmine earlier in the evening, it now comes down to the head-to-head matchup between the Sugar Bears and the Bisons on Saturday to determine the four and five seeds in the ASUN West. The winner-take-all game will determine which team hosts the first round of the ASUN Championship and which team travels. Game time against the Bisons is set for 3:30 p.m. in Nashville, Tenn.