ABILENE, TEXAS - California Baptist University women's basketball avenged a loss from less than two weeks ago at the hands of Abilene Christian with an 87-84 victory over the Wildcats in Texas. The win gets CBU back in the win column, and back over .500 in Western Athletic Conference play at 4-3, while the Wildcats drop to 2-5 in the league standings.
Khloe Lemon overcame early foul trouble to finish with a game-high 29 points on 10-13 shooting from the field and going 6-9 from distance. Nhug Bosch Duran chipped in an easy 17 points while shooting 71.4% from the field, 60% from three, and 100% from the charity stripe.
Freshman CeCe Legaspi posted her third point total in double-figures in the past five games, adding a dozen points to the Lancers' effort to go with five boards and a career-high four blocks. Grace Schmidt returned to action in Abilene, starting for CBU and playing 33 minutes and totaling 11 points, five rebounds, and a block.
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The first half was paced by each team trading significant scoring runs, with ACU opening the contest with a 9-0 run before CBU put up runs of 8-0 and 7-0 to eventually take a one-point lead at the end of the frame. The second half was commanded by the Lancers, who used an early 11-0 run to build the largest lead of the game, 12, before the media timeout. Abilene would recover some of that deficit before halftime but still go into the break trailing 47-40.
The second half saw new vigor from the home team, who cut the Lancers lead to just two midway through the third quarter before CBU built it back up to nine heading into the final 10 minutes. The Wildcats kept it tight in the fourth quarter, even managing to tie the game twice, but CBU never let them gather enough momentum to take back a lead. CBU would make seven of their eight free throws in the final frame, led by Lemon, who scored 11 of her 29 points in the fourth.
The Lancers season-best 87 points came courtesy of the best shooting night of the season, going over 50% for the third time in January. CBU set a new season high with a 55.6% (30-54) clip from the field. They also put up a carbon copy of that 55.6% (15-27) effort from beyond the arc, the second-highest conversion rate of the season. The Wildcats shot well, going for 42.6% and 34.5% from the field and three, respectively, but what kept them in it was a combination of 15 offensive rebounds and making more free throws (22) than CBU was awarded (20).
The Lancers are done for the week as there is no contest on Saturday for CBU. The extra rest comes at a time when they are finally getting healthy and trending upwards at nearly the midway point of the conference schedule. However, the schedule will ramp up now, with the Lancers heading to Cedar City, Utah, to take on Southern Utah on February 6th before facing off with the preseason WAC favorites, Grand Canyon, in Phoenix on February 8th.
