CORPUS CHRISTI — ACU seniors
Jaren Lewis,
Jaylen Franklin and
Hayden Farquhar had never won a game in their careers at the American Bank Center.
Until Wednesday night.
The Wildcats used a valiant second-half effort from those three and several others — including
Payten Ricks,
Trey Lenox and freshmen
Joe Pleasant and
Damien Daniels — to rally from a six-point halftime deficit to knock off Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, 73-64.
The win pushes ACU back into sole possession of second place in the Southland Conference at 11-4 in the league (22-6 overall), one-half game ahead of New Orleans, which lost at home to Sam Houston State, a win that clinched the regular-season league title for the Bearkats. ACU is also one full game ahead of fourth-place Southeastern Louisiana (10-5) and 1.5 games ahead of fifth-place Lamar (10-6) heading into the final 10 days of the regular season.
ACU — which still hasn't lost back-to-back games this season — will play its final road game of the regular season Saturday at 4 p.m. when it takes on Central Arkansas in Conway, Ark. The Bears — who dropped a 79-56 decision to ACU in Abilene earlier this season — whipped defending league champion Stephen F. Austin, 92-74, Wednesday night in Conway to move into a four-way tie for seventh place in the standings at 6-9.
Before Wednesday night's game, the Wildcats were 0-5 all-time against the Islanders in Corpus and hadn't come closer than nine points in any of those contests. The Wildcats trailed by six at halftime (33-27) and were struggling to get much going offensively. Farquhar did his best to keep the Wildcats in it in the first half as he finished the first 20 minutes with seven points and five rebounds.
But the Wildcats flipped the game midway through the second half flipped the script on the Islanders in the second half as they outscored them 46-31 behind 12 second-half points from both Lewis and Franklin. Franklin got the game tied at 43-43 with 13:50 left in the game with a 3-pointer from the right wing, just his second 3-pointer in conference play.
After Corpus regained a 45-44 lead, the Wildcats went on a 10-0 run that started with two free throws from Lewis at the 11:32 mark, a bucket by Pleasant at the 10:50 mark, a huge 3-pointer by Lenox with 9:58 left, a layup in the paint by Lewis with 9:04 to play and a free throw by Pleasant with 6:40 to play, all of that giving ACU a 54-45 lead.
Lenox had a big 3-pointer in the final minutes and Ricks added another big 3-pointer with 3:30 to play to stretch the lead back to 61-52. After Franklin hit a jumper in the lane with 2:43 to play, the Wildcats led 63-52. ACU then went 9 for 12 from the free throw line in the final 1:57 of the contest to ice the win. Pleasant was a huge factor in the second half as he finished the game with 10 points and eight rebounds.
"I'm really proud of our guys," ACU head coach
Joe Golding said. "I could feel a lot of energy (Tuesday night) at dinner and I knew we'd play well against Corpus. We kind of got back to being ourselves and it was a lot of fun. Now we go on the road and try to get another one at Central Arkansas."
