BETHANY – Southern Nazarene's Payton Jones was fouled with one second left and she hit two free throws to defeat Oklahoma Baptist by a 57-55 count on Monday at the Sawyer Center.
SNU won its 10th straight and improved to 20-4 and 17-1 in the Great American Conference. For OBU, it dropped its fifth straight and moved its record to 13-11 and 9-9 in league play.
With the game tied in the final seconds, Jones was contacted along the left wing on a three-point attempt, and she followed with two free throw makes.
Jaedyn Getman scored a game-high 14 points to lead OBU. She was 4-for-4 from deep as well.
Melissa Southard added nine points and a game-high six assists while
Jill Leslie contributed 10 points and five rebounds. Plus,
Kennedy Large added nine points.
In the first, SNU's biggest advantage was a trio of three pointers that helped it attain a 19-12 lead. The Bison did get some stops and four steals in the quarter, along with threes from Getman and Large. However, a 26.3 percent shooting clip helped OBU fall behind by seven.
Second-quarter action saw the green and gold reel off nine straight. Down 25-12, OBU got points from
Madison Chambers, Southard and two 3-pointers from Getman to bring the tally to 25-21 at the 3:47 mark.
By half, a Leslie free-throw jump shot had the Bison down 31-25.
After intermission, SNU had a solid start to go up 17. The hosts hit 5-of-9 and led 44-27 after free throws by Emily Monaghan. Following that spurt, the Bison came back and nearly won the game.
Over the next 12:28 of competition, the Bison went on a 25-7 run. OBU broke into the double-digit deficit with a
Kayla Highfill bucket at 7:19 of the fourth. At that point, it was 49-40. Then, OBU pulled within one, 51-50, after Leslie's three-point jumper at 3:26. On the ensuing possession, Southard's pull-up jumper gave the visitors a 52-51 lead.
Getman provided another lead for the Bison, 55-53, with a corner three-ball. But on the next SNU possession, an offensive rebound and putback by Georgia Adams tied the game. On the very next trip, the Bison got an open three-point look to Leslie, but the sophomore's attempt was too strong.
Then with under three seconds to go on SNU's next possession, Jones was fouled and she made two of three.
Next on the schedule for the Bison is a road date against Arkansas-Monticello on Feb. 16.
