ACU wins ... but so does TWU
3/2/2003 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
ACU wins, but fails to reach tourney
Texas Woman's beats Angelo State to keep Wildcats out of post-season
ABILENE – In a game they desperately needed to win to keep their post-season playoff hopes alive, the ACU Wildcats came up with one of their best performances Saturday afternoon in an 86-73 Lone Star Conference South Division win over Midwestern State at Moody Coliseum.
Unfortunately for the Wildcats, it wasn't enough to get them back into the LSC Post-Season Tournament.
Texas Woman's completed a stunning two-game road swing with a come-from-behind 76-75 win over LSC champion Angelo State in San Angelo to claim the fourth and final spot in the post-season tournament. TWU and ACU both tied with 7-7 records, but the Pioneers won the tiebreaker because it swept ACU this season.
ACU had a chance to claim the fourth spot outright Thursday night, but lost at home to TWU, 83-81.
The Wildcats won five of their last six games under interim head coach Shawna Lavender to finish with its first winning record (16-13) since the 1999-2000 season team finished 14-13. However, ACU has not reached the post-season tournament since that season, a streak of three years.
In the season-ending win over Midwestern State, ACU jumped on the Lady Indians early and never trailed after Melanie Carter's 3-pointer wiped out a 2-0 MSU lead. ACU built its lead to 43-35 at halftime and continued the onslaught in the second half. Jackie Vinson played some of her basketball of the season in the first half with four points, six rebounds, two assists and two steals.
Junior guard Leah Wilson led all scorers with 20 points, 17 of those coming in the second half. She and senior guard Jodi Hellums teamed up four times for fast-break layups in the second half. Wilson also hit 4 of 7 3-point attempts, and the Wildcats as a team were 11 of 23 from behind the arc.
ACU's second-half lead grew to as many as 17 points on two different occasions, the last at 64-47 with 11:05 to play on a 3-pointer by Wilson. MSU, however, sliced the lead to seven points at 71-64 with 6:07 left on a 3-pointer by Kristin Ramsey.
The Wildcats, however, would not be denied as they immediately went an 8-0 run to push their lead back to 79-64 with 4:10 to play. Lynsie Blau started the run with a short jumper, followed by back-to-back 3-pointers from Jenny Jackson and Wilson. ACU's lead never dipped below 10 points the rest of the way.
Carter finished with 17 points and 13 rebounds to record her seventh double-double of the season and the 31st of her career. Carter finished with 470 points this season, joining Claudia Schleyer as the only two Wildcats to score at least 400 points in each of their first three seasons. Carter will enter her senior season in 2003-04 with 1,509 career points, which places her sixth on the all-time scoring list. If she scores her season average (503 points) as a senior, she will finish with 2,012 points and as the third all-time leading scorer in women's basketball history.
King tied the school record for 3-pointers in a season with 57. She needed four 3pointers in Saturday's game to break the record, but couldn't get the record-breaking fourth in the final seconds against MSU. She tied the mark with 1:03 to play, but missed a 3-pointer with four seconds left that would have tied the score.
Saturday also marked the final games in the careers of ACU seniors Hellums, Shara Helmbeck, Sara McBroom and Kristina Bell.
