ABILENE – The surging ACU Wildcats won their third straight Lone Star Conference South Division game Tuesday night, knocking off Incarnate Word, 69-54, in a women's basketball game at McMurry's Kimbrell Arena.
The game was played at McMurry because ACU's Moody Coliseum is occupied for the university's annual "Sing Song" production. The win for the Wildcats pushes them to 10-13 overall, but more importantly, to 7-4 and into third place in the LSC South Division.
The Wildcats are closing in on their fifth straight trip to the LSC Post-Season Tournament and 24th overall appearance. ACU can clinch that trip to Bartlesville, Okla., with a win Saturday at Eastern New Mexico and Midwestern State losses against Texas A&M-Kingsville (Tuesday) and at West Texas A&M (Saturday).
Sophomore post
Kelsey Smith recorded a double-double for the Wildcats with 22 points and 10 rebounds in just 25 minutes before fouling out. Freshman guard Mack Lankford added 14 points for her 11th straight double-figure scoring game and 19th in ACU's 23 games.
The Wildcats limited the Cardinals (7-15 and 3-7) to just 33.3 shooting from the floor (16 of 48), including just 3 of 13 from 3-point range.
The game was tight early before ACU freshman
Hillari Adam hit a jumper with 13:41 left in the first half to give the Wildcats an 11-10 win, a lead they would not relinquish the rest of the night. ACU's largest lead was eight points a couple of times before it settled for a 35-27 lead at the break.
UIW started the second half on a 5-0 run to cut the lead to 35-32 with 17:35 to play before Smith hit a jumper and
Autumn Whitaker converted an old-fashioned three-point play to push the lead back to eight points (40-32) with 16:47 left to play.
The run continued with a jumper by Smith at the 15:30 mark, a layup by Lankford at the 14:43 mark and a 3-pointer by Smith at the 14:15 mark to make it 47-34. That 3-pointer capped a 12-2 Wildcat run that gave ACU the cushion it needed to keep the Cardinals at bay.
The Cardinals, though, got the lead down to seven points late in the game, and the ACU lead was eight (61-53) after two free throws by Marissa Shinksy with 4:12 to play. The Wildcats, though, responded with an 8-0 run over the next three minutes that put the game away.
