PLAINVIEW, Texas – The No. 4 seed Mid-America Christian women's basketball team tested the top-seed and No. 1 ranked Oklahoma City, but the Stars pulled away late for 74-59 victory over the Evangels in the Sooner Athletic Conference Semifinal at the Hutcherson Center on Friday.
The loss eliminated for the Evangels from the SAC Tournament, ending the regular season with a record of 21-11 after reaching the semifinal round for the fifth time in program history.
MACU was led by junior guard Lexi Hernandez with 14 points on 4-of-9 from the three-point arc while senior forward Alexis Shannon chipped in 13 points and senior guard Rachel Tapps added 12 points on 4-for-8 from three.
Both teams struggled to score in the early going as Oklahoma City (30-1) held just a 5-3 lead through the first 7:24 of the first quarter.
Hernandez gave MACU some momentum toward the end of the quarter, knocking down a three with 2:36 to go and the Evangels tallied three more when Ossyana Ozoani got a steal and Shannon laid it in and drew the foul off the fastbreak to extend MACU's edge to 9-5 with 2:12 remaining.
The Evangels maintained a four-point edge down the stretch in the first quarter, but an Abby Selzer score with 28 seconds left cut the MACU lead to 12-10 heading into the second.
MACU came out on-fire to start the second quarter, putting together a 9-2 run on threes by Anna Kash, Ozoani and Tapps through the first 4:08 to stretch the Evangels' edge to 21-12.
A six unanswered run by the Stars briefly chipped the MACU lead down to three, but Tapps drained another triple with 3:43 to go until the half to make it a 24-18 MACU lead.
However, that was the Evangels last score of the half as OCU closed out the period with eight unanswered to take a 26-24 lead into the break.
Both teams struggled mightily on the offensive ends in the first half as Mid-America Christian shot just 8-for-31 (25.8 percent) from the field and 6-for-20 (30 percent) from three. Oklahoma City didn't fare much better, knocking down 11-for-31 (31.4 percent) from the field and 3-of-15 (20 percent) from behind the arc.
The Stars got the first score of the second half, but Tapps knocked down yet another three with 8:19 left to cut the deficit to 28-27.
Oklahoma City regained the momentum over the next two minutes, scoring six straight to push the edge back out to seven, but the Evangels answered right back with an 8-2 run of their own. Hernandez and Jessica Fairley each drained a three during the run while Ozoani finished it off with a jumper with 3:50 left, bringing the score to 36-35.
Much like the second quarter, the Stars wrapped up the third period with a 10-2 run to extend their advantage to 46-37.
Mid-America Christian managed to cut the OCU lead down to five on three occasions in the fourth quarter, the last coming on an Ozoani free throw 6:17 remaining.
However, the Stars were able to put the game away over the next two-plus minutes, rattling off 11 straight to stretch the lead out to 66-50 with four minutes remaining.
The Evangels were unable to bring it back under single-digits the rest of the way as the Stars closed out with the 74-59 win.
Mid-America Christian was a little bit more efficient on the offensive end in the second half, knocking down 12-of-28 (42.9 percent) from the floor and 7-for-16 (43.8 percent) from range, but Oklahoma City finished 17-for-37 (45.9 percent) from the field and 8-of-18 (44.4 percent) from the three-point arc in the final 20 minutes
The Evangels will now turn their attention toward the NCCAA Tournament as MACU will pursue its third straight NCCAA Division I Championship.
If the Central Region doesn't get two at-large bids, Mid-America Christian will host the NCCAA Central Region Championship between the winner of Southwestern Christian and Central Christian. Game times and dates will be determined by early next week.
