HAMMOND, La. – Staring at a chance to earn the program's first berth in the Southland Conference Post-Season Tournament, the ACU Wildcats looked poised to punch its ticket to Katy, jumping out to a 17-point lead over Southeastern Louisiana with two minutes left in the first half Saturday afternoon at the University Center on the SLU campus.
But in one of the most stunning turnarounds in recent ACU women's program history, the Wildcats watched almost helplessly as the Lions outscored them 51-32 over the final 22 minutes of the contest to take a 78-76 win over the Wildcats at the University Center.
A win would have given ACU its 10th conference win of the season and clinched a berth in the conference tournament, but a combination of too many turnovers (20, including 14 in the first half) that turned into 33 Southeastern Louisiana points and poor 3-point shooting in the final three quarters (11 of 31 overall, but just 6 for 23 in the final 30 minutes) led to ACU's downfall.åå
ACU led 44-27 with 2:11 left in the first half after a 3-pointer by freshman
Josie Larson, and the Wildcats appeared to be cruising into halftime. But the Lions got right back into the game, thanks in part to four turnovers by the Wildcats in the final 1:19 of the half. The Lions were able to take advantage of those to rip off a 13-0 run to end the half trailing just 44-40. Tyler Morrison hit a 30-foot 3-pointer at the halftime buzzer to make it a four point game. It was her only bucket of the game and those three points were the difference in the final score.
Southeastern carried the momentum into the third quarter as the Lions ripped off a 12-3 run to move its 55-54 lead to 67-57 with 1:18 left in the third quarter, and they went to the fourth quarter with a 67-58 advantage.
ACU trailed by between 7-10 points for most of the fourth quarter before freshman guard
Kayla Galindo buried a 3-pointer with 5:08 followed by a
Breanna Wright layup with 4:36 left to cut the SLU lead to 75-71.
Dominique Golightly then drove the baseline and banked in a layup with 3:17 to play to cut the Southeastern lead to 75-73.
Dugas then hit a pair of free throws with 1:36 to play before
Makayla Mabry took a pass from Wright and laid it in to cut the lead to 77-75 with 1:16 left in the game. After a blocked shot by
Sara Williamson on the defensive end, she was fouled on the other end and went to the line with 32.6 seconds left with a chance to tie the score.
Williamson, however, missed the first and made the second, leaving her team trailing 77-76. After a turnover by Dugas, Galindo missed a go-ahead 3-pointer with 12 seconds left, and Taylin Underwood grabbed the defensive rebound and SLU called a timeout with 6.2 seconds left in the game. She was fouled on the inbounds pass with 5.2 seconds to play and went to the line with a chance to put her team up by three points.
She made the second of two free throws and ACU called timeout to set up a play to either tie or win the game. Williamson — who last Saturday hit the game-winning layup against Incarnate Word with less than one second to play — got the ball again and drove to the free throw lane where she put up a shot that was blocked, thwarting ACU's shot at tying the game and sending it to overtime.
Wright and Larson led the Wildcats with 16 points, while Galindo had 13 and Golightly scored 10. The Wildcats (15-9 overall and 9-5 in the Southland Conference) will have another chance to punch their ticket to the Southland Conference Tournament Wednesday night when take on Texas A&M-Corpus Christi in Corpus Christi.
