The No. 2-seeded women’s basketball team moved past the sixth-seeded UT Arlington Mavericks in the Western Athletic Conference tournament with a 70-50 victory. The win was the Wildcats’ first in the WAC tournament since the team joined the conference in 2021.

Payton Hull, junior guard from Peaster, led the Wildcats with 21 points while making 6-of-10 shots from the field. With increased minutes in the dominant victory, Jazmyn Stone, redshirt junior from Federal Way, Washington, and Aimee Flippen, sophomore center from Glen Rose, scored 10 points off the bench. They were the only other Wildcats to score in double digits.

The ‘Cats grabbed an early 23 to 12 lead after the end of the 1st quarter. They would not give up the lead for the remainder of the game, extending it to as much as 26 with a Natalia Chavez three-pointer at the 8:48 mark of the 4th quarter.

Erin Woodson, junior guard from Richmond, Virginia, led the team in rebounds with nine while scoring five points in her 30 minutes of play. She also secured two steals and found four assists.

The 20-point victory extended the season sweep of the Mavericks to four games while giving the Wildcats their largest margin of victory in the season series. The two teams faced off for the regular season finale just six days before the quarterfinal round.

It was the third game in as many days for the six-seeded Mavericks after upsetting the three-seeded Thunderbirds of Southern Utah Thursday night. Standout freshman Kira Reynolds played just 15 minutes despite shooting 50% from the field and scoring eight points.

The Wildcats now have a chance to draw even with the regular season WAC Champions, the California Baptist University Lancers. The Lancers took 2-of-3, both in Abilene, from the Wildcats on their way to winning the regular season title. In the rubber match in Abilene on March 5, Filipa Barros lifted the Lancers to a victory that secured the WAC title with 26 points, including 11 of the team’s 13 points in the overtime period.

The WAC Tournament championship will tip off at 2:30 p.m. at Orleans Arena in Las Vegas. The winner will receive an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. It would be the Wildcats’ first appearance in the tournament since 2019, when head coach Julie Goodenough and the Wildcats lost to the No. 1-seeded Baylor Bears 95-38 in the first round.