WBB KWU Postgame - 3/15/25
Kristina Bonner
74
Kansas Wesleyan KWU 24-8
94
Winner MACU MACU 27-6
Kansas Wesleyan KWU
24-8
74
Final
94
MACU MACU
27-6
Winner
Score By Periods
Team 1 2 3 4 F
Kansas Wesleyan KWU 11 24 18 21 74
MACU MACU 19 17 24 34 94

Game Recap: Women's Basketball | | Adam Stanek - MACU Sports Information

No. 24 Women’s Basketball Runs Past Coyotes for 94-74 Victory in NAIA Tournament Second Round

OLATHE, Kan. – For the first time ever, the No. 24 MACU Women's Basketball team will advance to the NAIA Tournament final site as the seventh-seeded Evangels pieced together an incredible second half performance to run away with a 94-74 victory over 15th-seed Kansas Wesleyan inside the Cook Center on the campus of MidAmerica Nazarene on Saturday night.
 
TOP PERFORMERS GAME SUMMARY
  • First Quarter
    • Shy Christopher picked up right where she left off in Friday's win over Northwestern as she had a strong take and floater down the right side before hitting a long three as Mid-America Christian (27-6) opened the contest with a 10-1 run capped off on Christopher three made free throws with 7:45 left.
    • While Kansas Wesleyan (24-8) scored the next five to cut the MACU lead down to four, the Evangels doubled their lead back following a strong take and spin move floater buried by Christopher on the right side before Kylee Scheer got a steal and coast-to-coast layup, setting the score to 14-6 with 5:27 remaining.
    • Offense came hard to come by over the next five minutes for both teams as they combined to score 10 points over the stretch, but Scheer drained a huge catch-and-shoot three from the left wing with 40 seconds to go to give MACU the 19-11 edge at the end of one.
  • Second Quarter
    • The Evangels captured their first double-digit lead on Christopher's strong take down the right side and powered through for the left-hand lay-in at the 9:13 mark to make it 21-11.
    • Over the next five minutes, KWU chiseled away at the Evangels' edge, eventually knocking it down to 27-25 on Jill Stephens layup on the cut down the right side with 4:27 to go.
    • The Evangels briefly stretched their advantage back to five with just under four minutes left on Syncere Harrod's right-handed power lay-in, but the Coyotes battled back to tie the game at 30-all on Lamyah Ricks' steal and fastbreak bucket with two-and-a-half remaining.
    • With under two minutes to go, the lead exchanged hands four times as Stephens' triple at the 1:57 mark gave KWU its first lead of the game before Harrod had an immediate answer on the other end. While Catherine Bowman's bucket with 53 seconds left gave the Coyotes the lead back, Harrod sent MACU into the break with the lead with her offensive board and put-back with 32 seconds remaining to give MACU the 36-35 lead at the break.
  • Third Quarter
    • Mid-America Christian started the second half strong with Talayah Thomas rattling in a three from the right side on the first possession to stretch the lead to four, the Coyotes hung around over the next four minutes, tying it on three separate occasions with the last coming on a Bowman bucket with 5:25 on the clock.
    • MACU's defense toughened up over the next few minutes, holding the Coyotes to only two points over the next three minutes as an 8-2 Evangels run was capped off on Mia Smith's drive and finish through contact with 3:07 left, making it a 54-48 game.
    • While a Hampton Williams three cut the Evangels' edge to three with 1:58 to go, MACU finished strong by scoring the final four points on back-to-back Christopher fastbreak buckets, the last coming with a floater minute on the clock for her 30th point of the game, stretching the lead to 60-53.
  • Fourth Quarter
    • The Evangels momentum carried over into the final period. After trading the first two buckets, Sydney Savage came up with a pair of putbacks off of her own offensive boards to make it a double-digit lead at 66-55 at the 8:06 mark.
    • The Coyotes managed to knock their deficit down to single figures on a few occasions, the last coming on a Stephens three-ball with 2:53 to go to make it an 80-71 game.
    • However, Mid-America Christian's dominant offensive output in the quarter became the most evident in the final two-and-a-half minutes as the Evangels outscored the Coyotes 14-3, doing most of the damage from the free throw line before Mia Smith wrapped up the contest by hitting a high degree of difficulty shot clock beating turnaround jumper with 5.5 seconds left to wrap-up the 94-74 final.
GAME NOTES
  • Mid-America Christian posted its best shooting percentage of the season, going 33-for-58 (56.9 percent) while only attempting nine threes (4-of-9, 44.4 percent) and knocked down 24-for-34 (70.6 percent) from the free throw line.
  • On the defensive side, MACU was able to limit Kansas Wesleyan's perimeter game as the Coyotes shot 40.3 percent (27-of-67), including just 5-for-24 (20.8 percent) from downtown and converted on 15-of-22 (68.2 percent) of their free throw tries.
  • The Evangels controlled the glass, out-rebounding KWU 40-31 and even though the Coyotes held the slight 10-9 edge on the offensive side, MACU was more efficient with their extra tries by holding a 13-6 edge in second chance points.
  • Shy Christopher's incredible career-best 40-point performance will go down as one for the ages as it marked the third-most points scored by a MACU women's basketball player since the program joined the NAIA in 2007. It was the first time a MACU player dropped 40 in a game since Kelli Tolar's record 43-point outburst against Science & Arts back on Jan. 26, 2016.
  • Overall, Christopher also found herself in the top five list for most made field goals with 14 tying for the fourth-most, finishing 14-for-23 from the field and 11-of-16 from the charity stripe to go with seven boards.
  • Despite being held to just five points in the first half, Kylee Scheer came up big in the second half to turn in 17 points on a highly effective 7-of-10 from the field and 2-for-2 from the line. She also notched back-to-back double-doubles in the NAIA Tournament, pulling down a game-high 11 rebounds to go with three steals on the defensive end.
  • The only other Evangel to break into double-figure scoring was Syncere Harrod, who tallied all 10 of her points in the first half while shooting 4-for-9 from the floor with four boards.
  • Mary Nyakundi and Mia Smith also made strong contributions from the guard position with both players finishing with eight points apiece.
  • With the win, MACU improved to 6-1 all-time against Kansas Wesleyan with the two teams squaring off for the first time since 2019 while the result tied the largest margin of victory over the Coyotes in the series history.
  • While competing in their fifth straight trip to the NAIA Tournament, the Evangels will be competing at the final site at the Tyson Events Center in Sioux City, Iowa for the first time in program history.
UP NEXT
  • Mid-America Christian will see a very familiar foe in its Round of 16 game as the Evangels will take on No. 3 seed and nationally No. 5 Briar Cliff (Iowa) on Mar. 21 at 8 p.m. It is the third time the Evangels and Chargers will go head-to-head in the NAIA Tournament after MACU defeated BCU 76-64 in the First Round in Wichita, Kansas on Mar. 11, 2022, but will be looking to avenge an 81-67 loss to the Chargers in the First Round of last year's tourney.
Print Friendly Version