LAWTON, Okla. – The ACU Wildcats' hopes for a spot in the Lone Star Conference Post-Season Tournament took another blow Saturday afternoon as they dropped a 58-54 decision at Cameron.
The loss drops the Wildcats to 8-12 overall and 3-11 and into 10th place in the 11-team league. ACU is two full games out of eighth place, which is occupied by Texas Woman's and Eastern New Mexico, both at 5-9 in league play. The top eight teams in the league at the end of the regular season will qualify for the post-season tournament.
ACU has a series of huge games coming up, starting with Wednesday night's contest in Canyon against West Texas A&M. Following that will be three of four at home against Eastern New Mexico (Feb. 11), Texas A&M-Kingsville (Feb. 19) and Texas A&M-Commerce (Feb. 21).
The Wildcats led throughout much of the second half against the Lady Aggies, taking as much as a five-point lead early in the second half. But the lead was usually between one and three points.
Freshman
Paige Parliament buried a 3-pointer with 2:44 to play to give the Wildcats a 52-51 lead, and then her free throw with 2:09 to play broke a 52-52 tie. But that was ACU's last lead.
Julie Paunovic grabbed an offensive rebound and stuck it back in with 1:48 to play to give Cameron a 54-53 lead, and then she hit another layup with 55 seconds left to make it 56-53.
Parliament missed a game-tying 3-pointer with 22 seconds left, but Alexis Williams missed a free throw on the other end to keep the Cameron lead at three points.
ACU got a golden opportunity to tie the game with five seconds left when Nicole Pendarvis fouled Mack Lankford on a 3-point attempt. Lankford made the first to make it 56-54, but missed the second. She intentionally missed the third free throw, but Cameron picked up the rebound and Lankford fouled Alexis Williams, who canned a pair of free throws with three seconds left for the final margin.
Lankford led all scorers with 26 points to go along with five rebounds, four assists and three steals, while
Renata Marquez had 12 points and six rebounds. Cameron out-rebounded ACU 48-33 with 23 of those 48 rebounds coming on the offensive end.
