Women's Basketball | 1/12/2016 1:40:00 PM
Game Notes
Live Stats | Video ABILENE – Abilene Christian women's basketball continues its grinding Southland Conference schedule Wednesday with a 7 p.m. game vs. McNeese at Moody Coliseum. Live stats and video stream will be offered through
ACUSports.com with 'The Voice of the Wildcats'
Grant Boone handling the play-by-play.
ACU is off to a 12-2 start and is the Southland's only defeated team at 3-0 following Sunday's thrilling 71-68 victory at Nicholls. In the 45-year history of Wildcat women's hoops only three teams have posted an equal or better start after 14 games: 1987-88 (12-2), 1996-97 (13-1) and the 1995-96 squad that started 25-0.
The Wildcats also have won their last nine home games, dating back to last February, but this McNeese team (10-5, 2-1 SLC) is on a roll of its own and would certainly like to get back at them after losing 75-59 in Lake Charles last January – a game in which the Cowgirls came back from 15 points down to take a 10-point lead early in the second half.
ACU finished that contest on an astonishing 36-10 run and held the Cowgirls to .364 shooting (.148 [4-27] from 3-point range) in breaking a three-game conference-losing streak. The comeback effort was ACU's biggest since Feb. 27, 2014, when it rallied from 12 down to beat Nicholls on the road, 78-62. The Wildcats have produced two comeback victories this season vs. Grand Canyon and Nicholls, trailing in each of those games by as many as six points.
Sunday in Stopher Gym, the Colonels erased their 12-point first-quarter deficit two minutes into the second half but could never quite pull away from the Wildcats.
Whitney West Swinford hit the game-tying three pointer with 1:07 left and the defense held Nicholls to without a field goal over the final 2:16.
Alexis Mason scored 19 points in the Nicholls' victory and earlier this week she received her first Southland Conference Player of the Week Award. Last week Mason totaled 23 points in the Wildcats' first-ever win over Northwestern State and three days later she played all 40 minutes at Nicholls, pulling down a career-high nine rebounds to go along with her 19 points.
ACU's three Southland Conference Player of the week Awards (
Sydney Shelstead,
Lizzy Dimba and Mason) are a program best. Two Wildcats won the award during 2014-15, and only one received this citation in 2013-14.
McNeese has the third most wins in the Southland Conference with 10 and at 2-1 is only 1.0 game behind the first-place Wildcats (3-0). The Cowgirls have won their last two league games vs. Houston Baptist (71-64) and A&M-Corpus Christi (72-51) after being whipped by Stephen F. Austin, 80-55, in the conference opener. Their non-conference DI wins have come vs. Rice, UT Arlington, Dartmouth, UL Monroe and Louisiana Tech.
The Cowgirls finished fourth in the preseason Southland Conference coaches' poll and received two first-place votes. All-conference guards Allison Baggett (12.1 ppg) and Jalyn Johnson (12.3 ppg) lead McNeese in scoring.
