Northwestern Oklahoma State’s women’s basketball team took down Southern Arkansas for the second time this season, this time around defeating the Lady Muleriders by a final of 77-67.
Sophomore Deja Beechum dropped a career-high 22 points on 7-of-15 shooting from the field. Beechum was 4-for-7 from behind the arc and hit all four of her free throw attempts.
Northwestern hit an outstanding 21-of-25 free throw attempts during the contest and led from the 6:52 mark of the first quarter. The Lady Rangers defeated Southern Arkansas back on Dec. 1 by a final of 71-64, giving the Rangers their first sweep of a Great American Conference opponent in two years.
Three other Lady Rangers reached double-digit scoring including juniors Kalea King and Kori Barrios, who contributed 16 and 14 points respectively, as well as senior Ashley Pride with 10 points. Pride’s 10 point effort marks the fifth straight game Pride has reached the double digit mark in her final season as a Lady Ranger. King led the way with eight boards for the Lady Rangers to lead the squad just ahead of sophomore Mckenzie Billy’s five boards, who continues to have solid production coming off of the bench.
Northwestern opened up the first half of action against the Lady Muleriders with one of their best shooting performances in a half for the season. Northwestern hit 14-of-24 shots in the first half for a 58.3 percent mark. Barrios led the way with 14 points in the first half alone to help spur the Lady Rangers to a 10-3 run during the final minutes of the half to establish a 41-30 lead going into the break.
The Lady Rangers continued their solid play, outscoring the Lady Muleriders 16-15 in the third quarter to take a 57-45 lead into the final quarter of action. Four straight Southern Arkansas points to begin the final quarter forced a Northwestern timeout to regroup. The Lady Muleriders got another basket to go and were threatening to make things interesting with an eight-point run, but a nice steal from Barrios followed by back-to-back three-pointers from Beechum put the Lady Ranger lead back up to 63-51. Beechum had nine of her 22 points in the fourth quarter.
Despite some pressure from Southern Arkansas in the dying minutes of the game, the Lady Rangers held off the late run by hitting 8-of-9 free throws in the final three minutes of the game.
The victory will move the Lady Rangers back into a four-way tie for the final spot in the post-season GAC tournament. This next weekend’s games against Southeastern and Southwestern will be crucial in the Lady Rangers pursuit of their first tournament berth since the team’s acceptance into the conference.
The Lady Rangers were unable to make such a comeback against Arkansas-Monticello earlier in the week. They lost a tough game 66-74.
Northwestern will return home for a match-up with instate rival Southeastern Oklahoma State on Thursday evening inside Percefull Fieldhouse with tip-off set for 5:30 p.m