SHAWNEE – Kalifa Ford posted game-highs with 24 points and 13 rebounds as the Oklahoma Baptist women's hoops team earned a convincing 66-51 victory over Southeastern Oklahoma State on Saturday at Noble Complex.
OBU improved to 6-3 and 2-1 in the Great American Conference while the Savage Storm dipped to 3-6 and 1-2 in league play. For OBU, the win over Southeastern was its first since Feb. 7, 2019, a span of six games.
Ford's 24 points were one off her career high while her rebounding total was just two off.
Complimenting Ford was
Mallory Lockhart who continued her impressive shooting. The junior hit five of her 10 shots, was 4-of-8 from downtown and scored 16. Additionally,
Jaylin Stapleton contributed seven points and a game-high seven assists.
Collectively, the Bison hit 49 percent, owned a plus-11 rebounding advantage (37-26) and were 11-of-12 at the foul line.
Southeastern had just two leads the entire game and those came early on. A Chandler Kemp jumper at 8:02 pushed the tally to 4-2, Savage Storm, before OBU went in front.
On the very next possession, Ford sank a three from the top of the arc to give the home squad the lead, 5-4. The Bison would then score on three of their next four possessions, which included makes from
Payton Taylor,
Andreja Peciuraite and Lockhart, to attain a 12-7 lead. By the end of the period, a
Kendall Parker jumper pushed OBU's advantage to 22-14.
In the second, the Bison defense really buckled down the Storm's offense. In fact, they gave up just nine points and 30.7 percent shooting. That helped the green and gold go up by 12 points, 35-23, at half. Stapleton's two free throws with six seconds left help OBU attain that margin.
After the break, the Bison shot ahead for good with an early spurt in the third. Lockhart started the stretch with a three before Stapleton knocked in a long ball from the right wing to bring the count to 41-27. One possession later, Peciuraite converted an and-one to give the hosts its biggest margin, 44-27.
Over the remainder of the game, the Storm cracked the double-digit deficit just twice.
In a week, the green and gold will host East Central at 5 p.m.
