FORT MYERS, Fla. – A historic run for the Sugar Bears comes to an end in the ASUN Championship Final, ending the deepest run in the ASUN tournament to date for Central Arkansas. Saturday's championship game ended 76-47 against the No. 1 seed FGCU.
The Sugar Bears end the tournament 21-11 on the year, having dropped its first ASUN title game in program history.
Bree Stephens and
Kinley Fisher each scored 11 to lead the Sugar Bears, with Stephens hitting three triples in the game.
"I'm proud we put ourselves in a position to play in this game tonight. We're disappointed in the way we played it, but hopefully we take the positives of being her a nd learn things from being in this situation," Head coach Tony Kemper said after the game. "I hope we come back and find that hunger to figure out how to close that gap between us and where we want to go."
Stephens kept Central Arkansas close in the first quarter, hitting the game's opening shot from distance. In the middle of the frame, with the Sugar Bears trailing by one, the Eagles were able to break out a 12-0 run to put some distance between the teams. A three-pointer from Stephens cut the lead to ten, 21-11, a mark that held until the end of the quarter.
Both defenses settled in for the second, despite each team scoring on their first possession. The teams combined for just 19 points in the frame, with the Sugar Bears closing out on three-point shooters and the Eagles contesting shots down low. Both sides had four players score once, with a couple of free throws and a three-pointer being the only difference. But after holding the Eagles to eight percent from distance in the second and 17 percent in the first half, the Sugar Bears went into the locker room staring down a 13-point deficit.
And after holding the FGCU shooters in check so well in the first half, even the contested shots started falling for the home team. Florida Gulf Coast shot 5-of-12 from distance, matching what the Sugar Bears did from the floor, in the frame, pulling away and putting Central Arkansas in a tough spot.
Jade Upshaw had four points and seven rebounds in the third, fighting to help keep her team within striking distance, but the Eagles' shot making was too much.
The offenses of both teams opened up in the fourth, but the Eagles continued to pour it on from distance. Fisher scored nine points in the final quarter on a perfect 3-for-3 from the field, hitting a three pointer and adding a pair of free throws, but her burst wasn't enough to close the gap.
"We've got a good group. We have good players, good people. I think as soon as we got the ones that we got, everything in the past didn't matter," Kemper added. "I think, in a way, we should have been here or pretty close to it. When we got the players we wanted, we immediately started talking about what could we do to play in this game."
Central Arkansas now awaits to see if its historic turnaround will be rewarded with postseason play. Without the automatic berth into the Big Dance, the Sugar Bears will wait and see if a selection to the WBIT, the WNIT or another postseason tournament is imminent.
