BETHANY, Okla. – In their
Sooner Athletic Conference opener and in advance of a showdown with Oklahoma City University, Wayland Baptist broke open a close game in the second half as the fifth-ranked Flying Queens handed Southwestern Christian its first loss of the season here Thursday night, 73-50.
Wayland (4-1, 1-0 SAC) trailed 15-14 after the first quarter and led by just six at the half. But the Flying Queens held the Lady Eagles (6-1, 0-1) to just six second-quarter points and outscored them 22-11 in the third quarter before going up by as many as 26 points in the fourth period.
"We have to wake-up for those games in the first quarter. I don't know if we've had a good start yet to any of our games, for whatever reason," Wayland coach
Alesha Ellis said. "But I'm proud the girls finally started playing their game.
"I challenged them at halftime and they answered. We had a much stronger second half."
Sophomore
Cailyn Breckel led Wayland with a season-high 12 points, followed by a trio of seniors in
Morgan Bennett with 11 and
Kelea Pool and
Kambrey Blakey with nine each. Bennett added eight assists, Blakey pulled down seven boards, and Pool led the team with nine rebounds, four blocks and three steals.
"Breck had a strong game and I'm proud of her for playing as hard as she did, and Kelea came off the bench and had another great game," Ellis said.
The Flying Queens held SCU's top scorer, Kylee Vestal who averages more than 16 points per game and who netted 27 in her last outing, to just seven. Vestal was scoreless until very late in the third quarter.
"She's a really good shooter, but our girls did a good job on her tonight," Ellis said.
While Breckel was 5-of-6 from the field and 2-of-2 at the free-throw line, most other Flying Queens had to overcome a cold shooting night that saw the team shoot 38 percent (27-of-71) from the field, including 8-of-28 (29 percent) from 3-point range. WBU hit 11-of-14 foul shots (79 percent).
The Lady Eagles, who were led by Mackenzie Janz with eight points, shot just 27 percent (17-of-62) from the field and 24 percent (5-of-21) from deep. They were 11-of-16 at the foul stripe.
"They're a good team that has shooters everywhere. I'm proud we held them to 50," said Ellis.
Wayland ended with 17 turnovers, one more than SCU.
"Southwestern Christian caused us to turn the ball over quite a bit," said Ellis, adding, "Our inside game has to get stronger."
Next for Wayland is a date with third-ranked, defending SAC champion Oklahoma City (4-0) at 2 p.m. Saturday at Abe Lemons Arena. The Stars, who lost exhibition games to Texas A&M (67-37) and the University of Oklahoma (88-68), hosted Oklahoma-Panhandle State on Thursday.
"We can't have the start we had today against those guys. We have to make sure we're on our horse and execute our game plan," Ellis said. "If we'll just relax and play, I believe we'll rise to the challenge and compete with them."
