ABILENE, Texas – The ACU Wildcats outscored Howard Payne 20-6 in the opening five minutes of the contest Monday night as they crushed the Lady Jackets, 102-60, in a non-conference women's basketball game at Moody Coliseum.
Four Wildcats scored in double figures and the Wildcats hit triple digits for the 48th time in program history as they improved to 2-0 on the young season. ACU will be back in action Wednesday at 7 p.m. when it takes on UTSA in San Antonio. Howard Payne, meanwhile, falls to 0-1.
Alexis Mason – who had 19 points in Saturday's season-opening win over Wayland Baptist – led the Wildcats with 24 points Monday night as she hit 9 of 15 shots from the floor, including 5 of 7 from 3-point range.
Suzzy Dimba had 17 points and six rebounds, while twin sister
Lizzy Dimba had 15 points and two rebounds. Freshman
Madison Parker had the first double-double of her career with a 15-point, 12-rebound effort off the bench.
The Wildcats were never threatened in the game as they jumped out to a 7-0 lead on a 3-pointer by
Suzzy Dimba and back-to-back buckets by
Sydney Shelstead and Mason. After HPU scored its first bucket of the game,
Whitney West followed with back-to-back layups before HPU all-America guard Danyel Bradley scored four straight to cut ACU's lead to 11-6 with 16:30 left in the first half.
But Mason hit a 3-pointer, followed by back-to-back 3-pointers from Parker to push the lead to 20-6 with 14:52 left in the half. ACU's lead never dipped below 12 points the rest of the way as it improved to 23-4 all-time against the Lady Jackets in their first meeting since ACU beat them 122-42 during the 1995-96 season.
ACU's first 20-point lead came at the 10:32 mark on a pair of free throws by Parker to make it 33-13 and the lead hit 30 on a layup by
Suzzy Dimba to make it 52-21 with 1:23 left in the first half. ACU's first 40-point lead came with 9:16 left in the game when
Lizzy Dimba converted a three-point play to make it an 84-44 lead.
The Wildcats shot 51.4 percent from the field (37 of 72), including 41.7 percent from 3-point range (10 of 24). After struggling at the free throw line in Saturday's win over Wayland Baptist (16 of 29), the Wildcats finished 18 of 19 from the charity stripe in Monday night's win.
