Box Score
ABILENE - Abilene Christian's women's basketball team continued its fast start Tuesday night at Moody Coliseum where the Wildcats thrashed Northwood University, 105-44, in finishing their season-opening homestand at 4-0.
Among the many highlights tonight were six players scoring in double figures and three finishing with double-doubles. ACU also pulled down a season-high 62 rebounds, which was its most since finishing a 2011 game vs. Kingsville with 64.
Freshman
Sydney Shelstead led all players with 20 points (in 19 minutes) and registered her second double-double of the season with 10 rebounds. Senior
Renata Marquez matched the rookie's rebound total and chipped in 16 points to go along with a game-high five assists and five steals.
Suzzy Dimba had another incredible night off the bench, scoring 10 points on 4-of-8 shooting with 11 rebounds and four assists in 18 minutes, while classmate
Jessica Elkins connected on four buckets in finishing with a season-high 12 points.
Yet another freshman,
Brianne Jolivet tied Dimba for the most rebounds with 11.
Starting guards
Whitney West and
Alexis Mason were equally impressive as the duo combined for 33 points on 13-of-26 shooting with five 3-pointers, eight assists and four steals.
Overall, the Wildcats shot a respectable 44.9 percent from the floor in reaching the century mark for the second time in four games. They scored more than half their points in the paint (54), while 39 more came from 3-point range as ACU made 13-of-40 attempts (32.5).
Rebounding also came easy tonight for the Wildcats as they out-rebounded the Knights 62-30, which included a 28-5 margin in offensive rebounds. That effort netted ACU 36 second-chance points, while its defense converted 28 turnovers into 29 points.
As for the Knights (4-2), 18 of their 44 points came from the free-throw line as they were continually stymied under the basket by the Wildcat defenders. Northwood made just 3-of-21 (14.3) field goals in the first half and went into halftime down 60-18. The visitors were slightly better in the second half, but failed to close the gap at any point in making just 9-of-26 (34.6) attempts.
Lakeisha Blanson led her team with nine points despite shooting 1-of-11 from the floor as she made seven free throws. B'ria Wagner, who hit Northwood's first bucket of the game that gave the Knights an early 2-0 lead, finished with eight.
West hit one of her three treys right after Wagner's bucket to give ACU the lead for good at the 19:17 mark.
Following Wagner's bucket, the Knights didn't make another field goal until the 10:04 mark when Wagner banked in a layup that cut ACU's lead to 20 points at 29-9. Less than a minute later at the 9:22 mark, Krystal Andazola buried a 3-pointer that would be the Knights very last field goal of the first half.
ACU pushed its lead out to 30 points on the second of two Marquez free throws with 6:36 remaining and had its first 40-point lead at 2:19 after Dimba hit a layup.
Even with their entire bench in the game late, the Wildcats refused to let their foot off the gas as they extended their lead to 51 points on a bucket by Jolivet with six minutes remaining. And then Elkins sank a three-pointer at the buzzer for the final 61-point margin of victory.
ACU will hit the road for the first time this weekend for games Saturday and Sunday at North Texas. The Wildcats will face the Mean Green (1-1) for the first time since the mid-1980s Saturday night at 7:30 before taking on the Antelopes of Grand Canyon (2-0) - a first-year D-I school - Sunday at 3 p.m.
