SAN ANTONIO, Texas - A 20-point effort from sophomore
Lizzy Dimba combined with 16 points from her twin sister, Suzzy, and classmate
Alexis Mason led the Abilene Christian women's basketball team to a wire-to-wire 72-62 victory over Incarnate Word Thursday night at the McDermott Center.
The victory lifted ACU's season and Southland Conference records to 17-11 and 9-8, while the Cardinals (5-23, 2-15 Southland) saw their season-long losing streak extended to a 13th game.
ACU has swept its longtime rivals the past two seasons and have won eight of the last 10 meetings. In fact, the Wildcats haven't fallen to the Cardinals since the tail end of the 2012-13 campaign when both were part of the Lone Star Conference.
Suzzy Dimba scored the game's first six points within a 90-second window, first converting on a 'and one' opportunity on the Wildcats' opening possession and then burying a 3-pointer at the 18:28 mark. Suzzy would connect on only one more field goal the rest of the night, but was golden at the free-throw line, where she made all 11 of her attempts.
Dimba's perfect performance at the foul line made her only the eighth conference player this year to post a 1.000 free throw percentage when taking 10-or-more attempts.
Lizzy also had a solid night at the charity stripe, knocking down 8-of-11 tries, while
Sydney Shelstead was 2-of-2.
Whitney West went 4-of-4 in helping her team pull away late in the closing seconds.
The 25 free throws were a season high for ACU and its most since hitting 32 against Texas A&M-Commerce in December of 2012.
The Cardinals, too, were frequent visitors to the foul line as both Shelstead and
Suzzy Dimba fouled out, but the home team couldn't capitalize as it missed seven of 25 tries including three in the final 3:15.
A pair of free throws by Shanise Brooks with 2:41 to go trimmed ACU's lead to nine points and the Cardinals could have made it a two-possession game if not for missed foul shots by Yvonne Maosa at 2:36 and Jazmine Holman at 2:08.
Holman's first free throw made it a seven-point game at 67-60, but she missed her second try and on UIW's follow-up possession Alyssa Ward couldn't get her layup to drop. West then pushed ACU's lead back to nine points with only her second field goal of the game, and iced the victory seconds later with two free throws at the 40-second mark.
UIW additionally was hurt in the second half by 11 turnovers and a partial inability to get off a shot as the Wildcats' defense held them to just 17 field goal attempts over the final 20 minutes.
ACU didn't shoot the ball particularly well either following the break (8-of-22, .364), but made up for it through a stout defense and 20 points from the free-throw line.
The Wildcats went into halftime ahead 38-26 paced by Mason's 11 points off the bench, nine of which came off three 3-pointers.
UIW was led tonight by Maosa with 17 points followed by Brooks (14) and Aricka Adams (12). Brooks additionally led all players with eight rebounds, while Holman dished out a game-high seven assists.
Suzzy Dimba recorded the lone blocks of tonight's game with two, keeping her tied for second in the league (conference games) at 1.9 per game.
The Wildcats conclude their regular season Saturday at 1 p.m. at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi. ACU defeated the Islanders last month at Moody Coliseum, 76-41, but since then A&M-CC is 3-0 including tonight's slam-dunk 73-48 win over Houston Baptist at the American Bank Center.
