Jan 19th, 2007 01:29AM
by: Josh Goff

By JOSH GOFF
UCA SID ASSISTANT

CONWAY — It’d been a long wait for the University of Central Arkansas – losers of five straight headed into Thursday night’s game with Lamar – and even though they had to wait a little longer than they wanted, the Sugar Bears were able to put away the Lady Cardinals 74-71 in overtime.

“It feels good to get that monkey off our back,” said UCA head coach Checola Seals-Horton. “We were wondering who was going to be the first victim, and it was Lamar. Somebody’s got to lose to us – we weren’t going to lose all of our conference games. Lamar was the first victim, but now we have to get ready for Saturday and see if we can get another one.”

The Sugar Bears’  (7-10, 1-4 SLC) first Southland Conference victory snapped not only their losing skid, but Lamar’s (8-9, 3-1) five-game winning streak as well – giving the SLC-East leading Lady Cardinals their first conference loss.

“Man it feels so good,” said Caronica Randle, who led UCA with 20 points. “We knew they were coming into this one with that winning streak, but it didn’t matter. We knew if we kept playing like we did the last two games, that we can beat anybody. It feels good having everybody scoring, coming in strong either scoring or rebounding or whatever we needed. We got some post points in there, too, which we’ve been needing. It’s not just one person – we’ve got to have all five.”

With Lamar trailing by three with 1:38 to play in regulation, Brittney Williams scored four of her game-high 25 points within the next minute to give the Lady Cardinals a one-point advantage at 63-62.

With 26 seconds remaining, UCA’s Meaghen Kelleybrew hit one of two free throws to tie the game at 63. Lamar answered back on a jumper by Dionne Pounds, giving the Lady Cardinals a 65-63 lead with 15 seconds to play.

UCA then got the ball in the hands of senior Renita Dobbins, who drew a foul from Lamar’s Vickie Toney and hit the pair of free throws to tie the game once again with 10 seconds to play.

Pounds hoisted a 3-pointer at the buzzer that skirted off the rim, sending the game to overtime.
“We knew it was going into overtime,” Randle said. “We had a lead and we should’ve kept it, but we fought back. Going to OT gave us a boost because they were out of shape and they were tired. We took advantage of that and started taking it to the hoop.”

That strategy worked for UCA, as the Sugar Bears hit 5 of 7 free throws in the extra period, while Lamar went just 2 for 7 – and that proved to be the difference.

Trailing by one, Randle attacked the basket and was able to get a layup to fall while drawing a foul. She made the free throw, putting UCA up for good, 69-67, with 2:17 to play.

Mariesha Piggee knocked down a jumper with just under a minute to extend the Sugar Bear lead to four.

In the final 30 seconds, Lamar missed five free throws (including four consecutive by LaToya Carson and Jasmine Stewart) and two 3-pointers while UCA got two more free throws from Piggee to push the lead to 74-69 with six seconds remaining to put the Lady Cardinals away.

“All I’ve got to say is it’s about time,” said Piggee, who had 12 points and ripped down a career-high 13 rebounds for her first career double-double. “We’ve been fighting, fighting, fighting, and we finally got one. We knew we just had to keep playing hard on D and stay on the boards, and we’d win.”

Staying on the boards proved instrumental in the victory, as the smaller Sugar Bears were able to overcome the Lady Cardinals’ size advantage – outrebounding Lamar 56-39, including 24 on the offensive end. That margin allowed the Sugar Bears to hold a 23-2 advantage in second-chance points, virtually erasing the Lady Cardinals’ 42-20 lead in paint scoring.

“Bottom line with rebounding – in the end it comes down to heart,” Seals-Horton said. “How bad do you want that rebound? If you want it worse than the next person, you’ll jump up as high as you can and go get that thing. It’s all about how bad you want it. How bad do you want to win? How bad do you want to help your team? Tonight, we wanted it. Shannon Oden had 10 and she’s averaging about three – that shows you how much she wanted it.”
Oden, who also added 6 points, gave the Sugar Bears some much-needed production inside after a little encouragement from a teammate.

“Shannon played with a lot of heart tonight. All of our seniors stepped up tonight, but Shannon was tremendous. Caronica had challenged the post players to step up and play, because at Corpus Christi we were all guards. Shannon’s roommate challenged her, and she stepped up.”

Oden’s 10 rebounds was her season high and tied a career best set her freshman year. It was one of many superlatives for the Sugar Bears, as Piggee nearly doubled her career best of 8 rebounds, Randle tied career highs in assists (five) and blocks (three), and Kelleybrew tied her career high with 12 points – the second time she’s done so in three games since returning from injury.

Dobbins added 11 points and 6 assists in 41 minutes of action, and Allyson Sample hit three 3-pointers to contribute 9 of UCA’s 21 bench points.

The Sugar Bears return to action Saturday at 6 p.m. against McNeese State, and with the streak over, hope to play to a bigger crowd than the 428 that saw Thursday’s win.

“Hopefully we’ll bring our fans back,” Randle said. “I think we were losing them for a second – they probably didn’t have much faith left in us. But we had faith in ourselves to get them back out here to support us. Hopefully they’ll all come out Saturday night.”