The women’s basketball team took on the Howard Payne Yellow Jackets Thursday morning and defeated them soundly 98-43.
ACU struggled the first few minutes of the game racking up five turnovers early in the first quarter, but finished it with a 19-2 run. Once the Wildcats had the lead, they never looked back increasing their margin of separation with a decisive victory of 98-43.
Senior guard Sara Williamson said her team is pumped to finally have the season well underway.
“It feels great to finally start playing games and to have a couple games under our belt and also just to be able to see all the things we work on in practice transfer over onto the court,” Williamson said. “Right now we’re trying to focus on being more aggressive with the ball on offense and then on the defensive end, we’re working hard to communicate with each other the entire possession.”
Junior transfer forward Lexie Ducat led the way with a double-double in 24 minutes of play finishing with 14 points off 7-14 shooting and 13 rebounds. Defensively, she had three blocks and two steals in her impressive outing.
The Yellow Jackets struggled the majority of the game shooting a dismal 25% from the court and was a lackluster 1-16 on three-point attempts. Meanwhile, the Wildcats shot 45% from the court and made 12 three-pointers in the game.
Key takeaways from the game were the rebound gap between the two teams. ACU out-rebounded the Yellow Jackets 62-29 as there were five Wildcats with five rebounds or more. Out of those 62 rebounds, 24 of them were offensive leading to 26 second chance points in regulation.
The Wildcats led 48-24 entering the second half, but the onslaught didn’t let up as they went on a 13-0 run early in the third quarter to put things away. With the outcome being secured early, that led to Head Coach Julie Goodenough to rest her starters and allow her less experienced squad to show themselves off. They did exactly that finishing with 50 points coming off the bench.
Junior transfer guard Jazz Taylor didn’t start in the game, but contributed well with eight points off of 3-4 shooting, four assists and three steals.
Coming up next, the Wildcats will face Eastern New Mexico Saturday in Moody Coliseum at 7 p.m. and try to build to a 3-0 record.
Meanwhile, the Yellow Jackets will head down to Georgetown, Texas and face the Southwestern Pirates at 2 p.m. Saturday.
