OKLAHOMA CITY – The No. 6-ranked and top-seeded Oklahoma City University Stars defeated the Mid-America Christian University Evangels 96-61 today (Mar. 3) in the Sooner Athletic Conference tournament semifinals at Abe Lemons Arena on the OCU campus.

The win moves OCU into the tourney title game tomorrow (Mar. 4) against second-seeded Wayland Baptist University at 1 pm.

OCU jumped out early with the first six points of the game and built a 14-4 lead at the 4:14 mark of the opening period.

The Stars stretched the lead to 25-8 before threes from Sarai Rodriguez and Mikki Flores closed the gap to 25-14 at the end of the first quarter.

Rodriguez then hit a jumper to begin the second quarter that extended the MACU run to 8-0 and cut the Stars' lead to single-digits.

It was still a nine-point game when the Stars pulled away by outscoring the Evangels 22-9 over the final 7:09 of the second quarter to take a 51-29 lead at the half.

After the Evangels clawed with 17 at the eight minute mark of the third quarter, it was all Stars as OCU used a 10-2 burst to take a 25-point lead and was up by 30 at 73-43 heading to the fourth quarter.

Rodriguez led the Evangels (20-11) with 23 points, including hitting a career-high tying 6-of-10 from three-point distance. Flores scored 13 along with a team-high five assists, while D'Shala Powell had a team-high seven rebounds.

Daniela Wallen led all scorers with 41 points and also had a game-high nine boards to pace OCU (28-2). Daniela Galindo scored 20 and Allison Frey chipped in with 15 points. Mariana Duran tallied a game-high six assists for the Stars.

The Evangels will now await to see if they qualify for their first-ever NAIA National Tournament berth.  The bracket will be announced next Wednesday (Mar. 8) at 7 pm. MACU received votes in the most recent NAIA Top 25 Coaches' Poll for the first time since 2013 to come in at #31 overall.