No. 8 Queens roll into SAC Tourney semifinals

Kaylee Edgemon, Jenna Cooper and Kaitlyn Edgemon all scored more than 20 points to lead No. 8 Wayland Baptist to a 95-66 victory over Southwestern Christian in the Sooner Athletic Conference Tournament quarterfinals Friday night in Hutcherson Center.

"I really felt like our bench came in and gave us some big minutes tonight," WBU coach Jason Cooper said. "It was an overall great team effort."
 

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The win – WBU's 10^th straight – sends the SAC champion Flying Queens (29-3) to the tourney semifinals at 6 p.m. Monday at the Gaulke Activity Center on the campus of Mid-America Christian University in Oklahoma City. Wayland will take on fourth-seeded Science & Arts of Oklahoma (21-8), which advanced with a 92-61 win over Langston.

The Queens and Drovers split their conference games, with Science & Arts winning in Plainview on Jan. 6, 81-77, before Wayland prevailed in Chickasha on Feb. 12, 66-56.

Monday's WBU-S&A winner moves on to the championship game at 8 p.m. Tuesday against either No. 2 seed MACU (27-3) or No. 3 seed Texas Wesleyan (24-5), who square off at 8 p.m. Monday. TXWES edged John Brown in the semis, 61-58, while MACU eliminated Oklahoma City, 68-58.

Wayland secured its most-lopsided win of its three meetings against Southwestern Christian (16-14) this season. After topping the Lady Eagles 65-55 and 80-71, the Flying Queens tripled those modest margins in rolling to a 29-point win.

WBU led 14-12 but ended the first quarter on a 9-0 run, the final six points on back-to-back 3-pointers by Ashlyn Shelley.

"It was good to see Ashlyn get going tonight," Cooper said.

The Queens held a 46-32 lead at halftime then slowly expanded their lead throughout the second half, especially in the fourth quarter when Wayland outscored the Lady Eagles, 30-14.

SCU was still within striking distance, 65-54, early in the fourth, but Wayland put it away late, ending the game on a 14-2 run over the final five minutes.

"I thought we did a really great defensive job tonight. We made it difficult for (Thamires Andrade) to get touches," Cooper said.

Andrade was one of five Lady Eagles to reach double figures. She had 16 and Lauren Wade 12, while three others netted 10 each.

Kaitlyn Edgemon led all scorers with 25 points, including a dozen in the first quarter. Kaitlyn Edgemon followed that by getting 11 of her 21 in the third period, while Jenna Cooper also finished with 21 to go with seven rebounds. Shelley tacked on nine.

Angel Hayden pulled down a team-best eight rebounds, dished out six assists and grabbed four steals to go with two points.

The teams combined to hit 36-of-40 free throws, Wayland hitting 21-of-24 (88 percent) and SCU 15-of-16 (94 percent). Andrade hit all 10 of her foul shots for SCU while Kaylee Edgemon made 8-of-9 and Kaitlyn Edgemon 6-of-6.