Left: Lady Ranger Bailey Brown (30) was able to get the rebound away from the Lady Bison. Middle: With determination, Lady Ranger Jakeria Otey pushes her way to the basket with the Oklahoma Baptist defense blocking her. Right: Lady Ranger Presley Payahsape (21) takes her jump shot over the Lady Bison defense during Saturday's game.
ALVA, Okla. – The Red and Black looked to bounce back after a heartbreaking loss at Southwestern Thursday evening. Northwestern prepared to take on Oklahoma Baptist Saturday afternoon on Hall of Fame weekend. They did exactly that, winning Saturday afternoon 75-59 in controlling fashion.
The Lady Rangers were led by their seniors, with Kalea King leading all scorers with 25 points on 9 of 20 shooting from the field. She was followed by Jakeria Otey who finished with 24 points on 9 of 14 from the field against OBU. Bailey Brown was the only other double digit scorer finishing the game with 10 points. Otey led the Rangers in rebounds with nine followed by Brown with seven.
The Lady Rangers used an 11-0 run to close out the first quarter after trailing 19-13 to gain control of a five point lead 24-19. The run was started by a King three followed by Brown's layup topped off with a Kenzi Lamer three pointer. Northwestern would never trail again in the game after grabbing that lead.
The Red and Black led for 31 of the 40 minutes in the game. Northwestern would finish with 24 points in the paint, 12 second chance points, and 12 fast break and bench points. Northwestern would out rebound the Bison 38-29 in the game. NWOSU defense forced 21 turnovers with the Lady Rangers committing only 15.
Oklahoma Baptist won the opening tip-off and got the scoring started as Jaylin Stapleton hit two free throws to give OBU the first lead of the game. Balanced effort early on kept the Lady Rangers and Bison trading points throughout the opening quarter. After the Bison opened a 19-13 lead, King silenced their run with a three of her own, sparking an 11-0 run to bring the Lady Rangers back and a five point lead at 24-19. The Bison ended the run right before the end of the quarter, bringing the Lady Ranger lead at the end of the quarter to 24-21.
OBU shot an impressive 8 of 12 in the quarter. Northwestern went 9 of 19 on 47% from the field to hold that three point edge in the end of quarter one.
After closing the first quarter on an 11-2 run, the Lady Rangers wasted no time keeping the momentum into the second. They opened the quarter on an 8-1 run and a 19-3 run overall to build a double digit lead of 32-22. Otey hit back-to-back three-pointers to open the frame followed by a Presley Payahsape shot from inside the paint. In the next four minutes of the game, both teams fell into a scoring drought with only three combined points.
Finally, teams would trade shots, and a Kaylyn Maple layup with 38 seconds left put the Red and Black up eight going into halftime. The Lady Ranger defense held the Bison to only 2 of 8 in the second quarter, with only six points. The Red and Black didn't shoot much better at 4 of 18 but were able to win the quarter 11-6.
The Lady Rangers led the Bison 35-27 through the first two quarters of play.
Each team would come out firing to open the third quarter with seven combined points in the first minute and a half of play. King scored the first six points of the second half keeping the Bison in the distance. As they tried to make their move with three minutes left in the quarter cutting the Lady Ranger lead down to five, Hillary Hurst had an answer of her own, burying a three pointer to bring the lead right back to eight, 46-38.
A Hurst mid-range jump shot brought the lead back into double digits with a 10 point Northwestern lead, which would be cut to six to end the third quarter. Northwestern shot 5 of 16 in the third quarter and only 1 of 7 from three but their defense only allowed three made shots from Oklahoma Baptist. The Bison won the quarter 15-13 because of nine free throws in the quarter.
The Lady Rangers held a six point lead going into the final quarter. The senior duo made sure that this was Northwestern's game to win as they combined for the first 18 points of the quarter before Brown's layup at the 1:34 mark in the quarter. Otey's layup with 20 seconds left put the final touches on the game giving the Lady Rangers their largest lead of the game of 16, which turned out to be the final deficit of the day.
The closest the Bison came was at five with 9:31 left in the game, but NWOSU took over once again, going on an 11-2 run to open up a 14 point lead. The Lady Rangers shot an outstanding 8 of 11 in the final quarter for 72% to extend the winning margin while holding the opponent to 31%. Along with going 2 of 2 from three, they also went 9 of 9 from the foul line in the final quarter.
The Red and Black won this game over the Bison 75-59.
The Lady Rangers finished the game with 26 of 64 shooting, good for 40% from the field, 8 of 28 from three, and 15 of 18 from the foul line. The game had one lead change along with only two ties as the Lady Rangers controlled this game most of the way.
The win improves Northwestern's record for the year to 9-7 and grabs their fifth conference win for a 5-5 in Great American Conference play. The Lady Rangers will travel to Arkansas next week for games in Searcy against Harding University on Thursday at 5:30 along with Russellville on Saturday at 1 p.m.
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