ABILENE -- The ACU Wildcats didn't necessarily have to win Tuesday night's game against Tarleton State to reach the Lone Star Conference Post-Season Tournament, but the way they lost it certainly won't be easy for them to forget.
After battling back from as much as a 16-point deficit to tie the game on a
Jamie Meyer jumper with seven seconds left, the Wildcats watched Brittnie Haley hit a layup at the buzzer to give the TexAnns a 66-64 in a key LSC South Division contest at McMurry's Kimbrell Arena.
The loss drops the Wildcats to 15-9 overall and 5-4 and into fourth place in the LSC South. The Wildcats will be on the road this Saturday to take on Midwestern State (6-16 and 0-9) in a must-win game for the Wildcats. ACU's next two games are against teams in Midwestern State and Eastern New Mexico that are a combined 2-16 in division play with the only two wins being ENMU's two wins over Midwestern State.
The TexAnns, meanwhile, improve to 20-5 and 7-3 and move into sole possession of second place in the division behind West Texas A&M.
The Wildcats were plagued by turnovers and poor shooting throughout most of the contest, and they found themselves trailing 53-39 with 11:38 to play.
That's when the Wildcats finally caught fire as
Jamie Meyer scored 11 of the Wildcats' 15 points in a 15-3 run over the next 7:14 that pulled them to within 56-54 with 4:24 to play, the closest they had been since they trailed 4-2 early in the contest. Meyer scored the first 11 ACU points in the run before her twin sister,
Jody Meyer, scored the final four points of the run.
The teams then traded baskets over the next four minutes with ACU unable to get closer than two points, which it did four times from the 3:33 mark to the 52-second mark.
Jamie Meyer made a jumper with 52 seconds left to cut the TSU lead to 64-62, giving the Wildcats a chance to pull out a miraculous win.
After Tarleton's Shelby Adamson missed a driving layup with 26 seconds to play, ACU's
Autumn Whitaker corraled the rebound to give the Wildcats a chance to tie or win the game. After a miss by
Courtney Laing,
Kelsey Darby-Holson grabbed the loose ball with 12 seconds left and ACU called timeout.
The Wildcats wasted little time after inbounding the ball as
Kat Kundmueller hit a cutting
Jamie Meyer for a bucket that tied the game at 64-64 with seven seconds to play. Adamson took the inbound pass and sprinted up the floor, driving under the bucket before flipping the ball t o Haley, who put in a layup just as the buzzer sounded.
The loss negated a spectacular effort by
Jamie Meyer, who hit 12 of 18 shots from the field on her way to a game-high 34 points. Laing finished with 10 points and four rebounds, but they were the only two Wildcats in double figures.
