The UCA women’s basketball team ruled over the Queens University Royals for the second time this season, winning Saturday’s game 68-50.
The victory extended the Sugar Bears’ perfect winning streak at home to 9-0.
The Royals (7-14, ASUN 1-9) opened the game with a 7-2 run, giving them a 5-point advantage. However, the Sugar Bears (15-6, ASUN 9-1) were able to tie the game by way of a 3-pointer from senior guard Jade Upshaw and a pair of free throws from sophomore forward Elizabeth Abiara.
Abiara led the team with a double-double, scoring 14 points and 12 rebounds, followed by sophomore guard Cheyanne Kemp with 13 points and Upshaw with 12 points.
“I thought that [Abiara] was just unguardable in terms of blockouts,” UCA coach Tony Kemper said. “Really proud of her, and she’s developing, and she’s really changing the game for us in a lot of different areas.”
“[Abiara] was really good defensively, too, especially in the fourth quarter, and sometimes it doesn’t show up in blocks,” Kemper said. “It did tonight, and I guess she had three blocks, but just her ability to slide and stay in front of guards and then recover back and make it hard and then get defensive reboots.”
Queens and UCA traded the lead for the remainder of the first quarter, which ended at 17-17.
The second quarter saw a seven-minute scoring drought for the Sugar Bears, in which Queens went on a 6-0 scoring run. A free throw from freshman guard Jenna Cook broke the Royals’ run and kickstarted UCA’s momentum to once again match Queens at the end of the quarter.
Trailing by 7 points, senior forward Bree Stephens began a 7-0 scoring run for UCA with a 3-pointer. This run tied the game 25-25 to conclude the first half.
“The second quarter was not good,” Abiara said. “I don’t think we scored [for] the first six minutes, but we kind of talked about, okay, we need to box out, we need to get deep rebounds, and we need to just play better because they were switching ball screens, so [we needed to] slow down and back it out because we were not matching them for the first eight minutes.”
The Sugar Bears traded the lead with Queens throughout the first four minutes of the third quarter. However, in the next two minutes, the Sugar Bears pushed an 8-0 scoring run, forcing the Royals to use a timeout.
Although the Royals were eventually able to break out of their scoreless run, UCA’s offense was too much to handle as the Sugar Bears continued to extend their lead.
UCA had an 11-point advantage by the end of the third quarter with the score standing at 46-35.
The Sugar Bears did not look back from the start of the fourth quarter and continued to extend their lead.
Defensively, UCA held Queens to no more than a 4-0 run in the fourth quarter.
The Sugar Bears also excelled offensively in the fourth quarter, forcing several fouls from the Royals and going 12-for-12 on free throws.
The strong second half from the Sugar Bears propelled them to their 15th win of the season and added an eighth consecutive win to their record.
“We’ve got a tough one on Thursday,” Kemper said, “I think the hardest one is, the one always right in front of us; everybody’s fighting for a lot. This Jacksonville team is difficult.”
The Sugar Bears hit the road this week for their next matchup against the Jacksonville University Dolphins at 5:30 Feb. 6 in Jacksonville, Florida.