ABILENE – Abilene Christian put together a solid finals-week effort and beat Abilene rival McMurry 91-55 on Monday.
The loss was just the second this season for McMurry (7-2).
"Credit McMurry. I mean, Coach (Drew) Long has done a great job with their team," said ACU Head Coach
Julie Goodenough. "I know why they have such a good record, why they're playing so well. They're well-coached, hard-nosed players. I thought they came in here very well prepared."
After McMurry scored the game's first five points, the Wildcats answered with 13 consecutive points in a swing that saw the game's lone lead change.
Addison Martin scored six points in that spree.
Payton Hull gave the Cats their first 10-point lead with a three-point play with 50 seconds left in the opening quarter and Clare Graham sank a three-pointer at the buzzer for a 26-15 lead.
ACU opened the second quarter with a 19-2 run to take a 45-17 lead. The Wildcats were 5-of-7 from three-point distance in that salvo.
The lead peaked at 36 on two different occasions in the fourth quarter on three-pointers by
Tristin Keller with 2:02 to play and by
Gracy Wernli with 52 seconds remaining.
ACU outscored the War Hawks 31-15 in bench scoring, led by Graham with 12.
"I really want to credit our starters," said Goodenough. "We gave up some points early on but then they kind of took control to start both halves. By them being able to do their jobs, it allowed everybody to get to play tonight."
Bella Earle led ACU with 17 points, followed by Martin with 14, Graham with 12 and Hull with 11.
The Cats also out-rebounded McMurry 42-30, led by
Clare Traeger's seven boards. Thirteen ACU players picked up at least one rebound. Hull led the team with four assists. Nine different Wildcats had assists
"We're trying to become an elite rebounding team, numbers-wise, and I think that we continued that today," Goodenough said. "We really shared the basketball well. I thought that offensively we executed well. You're always aggravated when you miss open shots but I thought our players shared the ball really well and read the defense well in the first half. We got out and scored in transition. We'd like to be able to do that more often."
ACU improved to 5-4 on the season and returns to action on Dec. 18 when the Wildcats visit Western Kentucky.
