Gallery: (1-21-2023) Queens vs UNT Dallas
The Wayland Baptist Flying Queens got their revenge…and then some.
Looking to avenge an eight-point loss to the University of North Texas at Dallas in mid-November, Wayland Baptist simply dominated the Trailblazers in Saturday afternoon's rematch, winning in Hutcherson Center, 87-34.
"It was a tale of two Flying Queen teams. The Queens team who played UNTD on Nov 17 couldn't hold a candle to the Queens team today," Wayland coach
Jason Cooper said.
On a day when super sophomore
Kaitlyn Edgemon became the 53
rd member of the Flying Queens' 1,000-point club, Wayland (12-7, 8-5 Sooner Athletic Conference) was never threatened by the Trailblazers (10-6, 8-6). WBU scored the first 11 points of the game, led 20-5 after the first quarter, and was up 49-10 at halftime.
"We knew UNTD was a solid team and would be ready to battle us for position in the conference standings. They had the conference's leading scorer coming into the game (Zyunn Cormier) who torched us for 32 points back in November (she got seven points Saturday)," Cooper said. "With that, we were ready to avenge that loss and have a little defensive redemption on our poor performance eight weeks ago. I'd say we did that!"
The Queens stretched their lead to 47, 70-23, when
Jenna Cooper-Jackson made a fast-break layup just before the end of the third quarter. WBU then scored the first 10 points of the fourth, and not long after that, Cooper emptied his bench, and WBU still went on to increase its lead to a game-high 58.
The final 53-point margin was the second-largest of the season to a 68, 98-30, victory over Central Christian (Kan.) on Dec. 10.
Edgemon, who ended with a game-high 24 points, needed just four to reach 1,000, which she got midway through the first period. She also logged a dozen rebounds for her second double-double of the season.
"I was thankful Kaitlyn got to get to that 1,000-point mark in front of her home crowd," Cooper said. "She is such a great leader and hard worker. One-thousand points is a career's worth of great basketball for most people. To think she has two more seasons! Man, she may be pushing that all-time record (2,461 points by Sharla Harrison from 1985-89)."
Cooper-Jackson finished with 14 points and 13 rebounds for her fourth double-double of the season. She was just two assists shy of a second triple-double, a week after missing a triple-double by a single assist against USAO; she missed a double-double by a rebound in Thursday's win over SAGU).
Ashlyn Shelley, who put up 14 points, and
Taryn Shultz, who got 12, hit four 3-pointers apiece as WBU matched their season-high with a dozen treys, hitting 12-of-32 (37 percent).
"I was excited to see Taryn and Ash get hot from the 3-point line. You add those two to Jenna's near triple-double and Kaitlyn's big double-double and we become very, very hard to beat," Cooper said.
"It was really nice to see us perform so well all the way around," the coach added. "Getting 16 points off the bench was huge. It was the second game in a row where we had four in double figures, so we feel really good about our offense."
UNT-Dallas made just 1-of-14 3s and shot just 22 percent (13-of-59) overall, including a miserable 13 percent (4-of-30) in the first half.
The Queens next hit the road to face third-place Mid-America Christian (16-4, 10-4) on Thursday and Southwestern Christian (9-10, 7-7) on Saturday. MACU rolled over Central Christian on Saturday, 110-56. Wayland nipped the Evangels on Dec. 3 in Plainview, 55-54.
Elsewhere in the SAC, Texas Wesleyan (18-2, 13-1) suffered its first league loss of the season Saturday to eighth-place John Brown (12-7, 6-7), 83-70.
