ABILENE – Abilene Christian suffered its first loss of the season, falling 69-58 to Rice on Thursday.
Rice jumped out to an 11-3 lead while ACU missed three shots and turned the ball over three times in the first five minutes.
Down 27-17 with 6:42 remaining in the second quarter, the Wildcats went on a 10-0 run with four players contributing points. That spree closed the gap to 27-25 and the Owls had a 30-27 lead at the half.
"Our defense of intensity was really good we were able to throw a couple of different defenses at them and forced some turnovers in the second quarter," said ACU Head Coach
Julie Goodenough. "Offensively, I think that we kind of got some of the same shots throughout the game but in the second quarter we were knocking shots down and finishing layups."
Rice retook control in the third period and led by as many as 15 points.
Down 12 in the third quarter,
Bella Earle started a 7-0 run with a three-pointer to trim the Rice advantage to 52-47 with 7:21 remaining. But that's where the drama ended as the Owls matched their biggest lead – 15 points – with 1:27 left in the game.
ACU The Wildcats had an uncharacteristic 27 percent from three-point range for the night after hitting two of the first three of the game.
"I thought that we made a lot of corrections in this game from Monday night, so I love the way our team responded and felt like we grew a lot from Monday to Thursday," Goodenough said. "Proud of the effort. It stinks that we lost the ballgame but I saw some good things from our team today that make me excited about moving on to the next day with them."
Earle led the Wildcats with 14 points and five rebounds.
ACU returns to action on Thursday when Angelo State visits for an 11 a.m. game.
