SHAWNEE – Oklahoma Baptist put together arguably its best game of the season on Saturday, defeating Arkansas Tech 90-80 in Great American Conference play at the Noble Complex.
OBU snapped a three-game skid and improved to 7-6 and 3-4 in league play while ATU dropped to 7-4 and 4-3.
The Bison's offense was outstanding on Saturday, hitting 51.6 percent, its second-best total this year. Plus, the team's bench outscored the visitors 31-12.
Furthermore, OBU cracked 90 points in a GAC game for just the eighth time since joining the conference in 2015-16. The last time the green and gold scored that many was December 1, 2018 when they tallied 92 in a win over Northwestern Oklahoma State.
Kalifa Ford led the way with 22 points and eight rebounds while
Jill Leslie came off the bench and caused all kinds of problems for ATU. She ended up with a season-high 16 points to go along with seven rebounds. Three more players reached double-figures for OBU:
Payton Taylor with 14 which included a 6-for-6 showing at the free throw line;
Jaylin Stapleton added 12 points, six rebounds and four assists; and newcomer
Kendall Parker registered 11 points and a game-high six assists.
In the first, both teams gave fans a glimpse of what was to come as each shot at least 56 percent.
Mallory Lockhart led all scorers in the period with nine as the Bison made 10-of-17. By quarter's end, it was 26-21 OBU after an and-one conversion by Arkansas Tech's Kaley Shipman.
Second-quarter action favored the Golden Suns who eventually took a 47-46 lead into half. ATU put a lot of pressure on the Bison defense and hit 4-of-6 from deep. Ashlei Lopez was responsible for two of those long shots as she tallied 13 in the period. Lopez's last three points came courtesy of an and-one to give ATU a one-point halftime advantage.
After the break, the Golden Suns used a 9-3 spurt more than halfway through the third to attain an 11-point margin. The end of that run saw a Nikki Metcalfe layup with 53 ticks left to bring the tally to 72-61.
Despite the deficit, OBU continued playing and eventually turned the corner on Tech.
The final period saw the Bison allow just 17.6 percent shooting to ATU, a 3-of-17 mark. In fact, OBU did not allow a single point to the Golden Suns in the final 4:37. Up until those final minutes, the Bison had to rally. Down 80-78, Ford scored three-straight times for the green and gold to move the scoreboard to 84-80, OBU. Then, the final six points were all Taylor free throws, moving her season average to 93.1 percent, a team-high.
Next on the schedule is a road date at Ouachita on Jan. 11 at 5:30 p.m.
