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ABILENE - Abilene Christian's women's basketball team will bid a fond farewell to senior
Renata Marquez prior to its 2013-14 season finale Saturday at 1 p.m. vs. longtime rival Incarnate Word at Moody Coliseum.
The second meeting this season between the Wildcats (17-12) and Cardinals (8-18) will air locally on 98.1 FM - The Ticket and simulcast via the ACU Sports Portal provided by Stretch Internet's Game Central. There also will be a live video stream and live stats.
A native of Conroe, Texas and 2010 graduate of Willis High School, Marquez has enjoyed a career season during her first and only year as a NCAA D-I student-athlete complete with 428 points, 172 rebounds, 110 assists and 57 steals. Her totals also stack up well against the rest of the Southland Conference as she ranks 10th in scoring (14.8 ppg), 19th in rebounding (5.9), seventh in assists (3.8) and fourth in steals (2.0).
In fact, Marquez and Lamar's Gia Ayers are the only Southland players to appear among the top-20 leaders in each of those four categories.
"This season has been a great learning experience," said Marquez, "and I feel that its been like freshman year all over again. Everyone from the freshmen to Whitney (West) and Meme (
Cemetra Jenkins) have been great to be around and I feel so blessed to be here in this position. I absolutely loved this whole season."
"Renata has impressed me since the start of last year, she is absolute stud," said head coach
Julie Goodenough. "She simply does everything for this team. She can rebound, score from all over the floor, and knows how to lead by example as well as vocally. I give her a lot of the credit for setting the tone in games and at practice. Our freshman have learned a lot from her work ethic."
Of Marquez' 158 field goals this season, 64 have been from 3-point range, and exactly half of her 172 rebounds have come off the offensive glass. Several of those boards directly led to a 3-point basket in the Wildcats' most recent decision - a 96-82 victory at Southeastern Louisiana on Monday.
Marquez also contributed three of the Wildcats' 13 treys vs. the Lions on nine attempts, keeping her ranked among the Southland leaders with a .346 3-point field goal percentage and 2.2 3-point field goals made per game.
As a team, ACU tossed up 33 3-point attempts at Southeastern Louisiana in raising its season total to a program record 850 further obliterating the old record of 712 set in 2012-13. The Wildcats' number of attempts is the third highest among NCAA DI schools behind Sacramento State (1055) and Oregon (904), while their 282 3-pointers (9.7 per game) only follow the Hornets (336 /12.4 per game) and Florida Gulf Coast (290 / 10.0 per game).
Additionally, ACU's 3-point defense (.285), assists (15.8) and steals averages (9.7) all are ranked among the top 50 NCAA schools.
With one game remaining, it's doubtful ACU will catch the Hornets or Eagles in either category, but don't think the Wildcats won't give it their best shot and put up 50 3-point attempts just to reach 900.
"I want to see our best offensive output of the season and really go after UIW as hard as we can Saturday," said Goodenough. "There's a great sense of urgency with this being our last game, so we also need to establish our defense early and work extra hard to out-rebound them."
The Wildcats and Cardinals last met on Feb. 13 in San Antonio's McDermott Center, where ACU recorded one of its five second-half comebacks of the season to capture a 73-67 win before a national audience on ESPN3. Despite trailing by as many as nine points in the second half, the Wildcats took off on a game-ending 25-10 run over the final 8:40 to beat UIW for the fifth time in seven games.
Marquez netted 14 points against the Cardinals, but it was rookie
Lizzy Dimba who gave the Wildcats' their offensive spark that night in scoring 21 points in 21 minutes on 9-of-11 shooting. Lizzy's twin sister, Suzzy, led the defensive effort with 14 rebounds, while freshman
Alexis Mason totaled 11 points.
Mason and the Dimba twins have been starting lineup staples since the beginning of the season, and together with the contributions of their five classmates -
Jessica Elkins,
Brianne Jolivet,
Erin Maxwell,
Chelsea Ngo and
Sydney Shelstead - the Wildcats' freshman class ranks second nationally in scoring behind North Carolina.
Five Tar Heel freshmen have scored 1,441 (or 58.6 percent) of their team's 2,460 points, while the Wildcats' eight rookies have contributed 1,376 points (62.7 percent) of their team's 2,195 points. Only UNC-Wilmington's freshman class has scored a larger percentage of their team's points at 71.4; however, the Seahawks have only played with seven players this entire season - six of them first-year players.
When looking at how ACU's freshmen compare to the rest of the Southland, Mason is the league's leading freshman in terms of scoring (12.4) and steals (1.6), while
Suzzy Dimba is its leading rookie rebounder (8.8) and blocker (1.4).
Lizzy Dimba, meanwhile, has the second-best field goal percentage in conference play, having made 47 of 81 attempts (.580). Only Stephen F. Austin junior Porsha Roberts has shot better in league games (97-162, .599).
"For the most part, our freshmen don't play like freshmen out there on the court," said Marquez. "They play at a very high level, and while I've had to push them at times, it hasn't been much. They've been real easy and fun to work with."
"This class has been phenomenal, and where they rank nationally in points scored or percentage of points scored, speaks volumes about them," added Goodenough. "They've exceeded expectations ... But we were all D-I freshmen out there this year, including Renata and our two sophomores, so it's blown my mind how successful we've been as a program. This has been a blessed and magical season and our players definitely put us on the map in the Southland Conference."
If the season ended this week and ACU were eligible for postseason play, the Wildcats would be going to the conference tournament in Katy, Texas as the No. 8 seed with a 7-6 record. But as it stands, they'll simply have to be content to enjoy their Spring Break, which begins next week.
"I told my players they better enjoy this break because it will be the only one they ever have," said Goodenough. "Next year we plan on playing either in the WBI or WNIT."
