COMMERCE –
Kelsey Smith recorded a double-double Wednesday night as the ACU Wildcats snapped a three-game Lone Star Conference losing streak with a 77-65 win over Texas A&M-Commerce at Lion Fieldhouse.
The win pushes the Wildcats to 7-7 overall and 2-6 in the LSC women's standings. Commerce, meanwhile, falls to 1-12 and 0-7. ACU is back in action Saturday at 2 p.m. when it hosts Tarleton State in LSC action at Moody Coliseum.
ACU led just 15-11 with 12:34 left in the first half before the Wildcats went on an 18-7 run over the next 9:25 to push the lead to 15 points at 33-18. Sophomore guard Mack Lankford – playing in her first game since she sprained her left shoulder in ACU's win over Eastern New Mexico on Dec. 17 – had seven points in the run.
Lankford hit two free throws at the 8:26 mark to make it 22-12, then hit a 3-pointer at the 7:51 mark to make it 25-14 and then hit a jumper at the 7:19 mark to push the ACU lead to 27-14. Those were the only seven points Lankford scored as she put in eight minutes off the bench.
The Wildcats eventually pushed their lead to as many as 18 points in the second half 46-28 and never led by less than seven points in the game's final 20 minutes as they got back to .500 on the season.
As big as Smith's effort was – she had 20 points and 11 rebounds for her second straight double-double – the biggest night might have been turned in by sophomore point guard
Savannah Smith. She finished the night with four points, three rebounds, three assists and one steal in 24 minutes. She had just three turnovers for an ACU team that committed just 13 turnovers in the game, one game after committing 28 turnovers last Saturday in a loss at Texas A&M-Kingsville.
Freshman
Paige Parliament had 12 points for the Wildcats, while
Cecilee Perez added 10 points in 25 minutes off the bench.
The Wildcats hit 34 of 41 from the free throw line (82.9 percent) compared to just 8 of 13 (61.5 percent) for the Lions.
