McNeese Women's Basketball falls to UCA in semifinals of SLC Tournament

Staff Reports

The Contraband

McNeese State’s women’s basketball Southland Conference Tournament title hopes ended Saturday with a 72-64 loss to top seed Central Arkansas. The Cowgirls end their season with a 20-12 record.

Senior Jayln Johnson and Allison Baggett’s careers came to an end but they didn’t dog down without a fight. Johnson scored a game high 27 points following her 23-point game against Lamar on Friday. Baggett ended the game with eight points.

The Cowgirls suffered their third loss of the season to the Sugar Bears but this one was closer than the other two regular season games. UCA defeated McNeese 70-56 in Lake Charles and 76-52 in Conway.

UCA took the lead from the opening tip and held its largest lead of the game of 12 points in the first quarter following a 9-0 run.

McNeese fought back in the second quarter to outscore UCA 20-16 but trailed 36-32 at the half.

The Cowgirls opened the third quarter by scoring eight of the first 10 points to take its first lead of the game (40-38). Baggett started the run off with a jumper followed by layups from Rachal and Johnson. The Cowgirls held its largest lead of the game 44-40 following free throws by Johnson with 4:28 left in the quarter. UCA went on to outscore McNeese 6-2 the rest of the quarter to hold a 50-46 lead.

McNeese made a run in the fourth and got as close as one point on a Johnson layup to cut the UCA lead to 55-54. The Cowgirls couldn’t get their shots to fall in the next few minutes and UCA’s Sandy Jackson and Kendra scored combined for the next 10 points as they extended their lead to 64-54 with 50 seconds to play. Johnson did everything in her power to help McNeese pull off the win as she nailed a three-pointer with 25 second to pull the Cowgirls to within six.

UCA would score their final six points from the free throw line as the Cowgirls fouled in an attempt to make the comeback.