RUSSELLVILLE, Ark. – The Arkansas Tech women's basketball team got back to their winning ways on Tuesday night with a 69-64 win in non-conference action against Maryville.
While the final score was close, the Golden Suns really dominated a majority of the game, especially the first quarter.
In that period, the Golden Suns raced out to an 18-0 lead by the midway point of the quarter. During that run, the Golden Suns made five of seven shots overall from the floor and three of their first three attempts from long range. On the other end, the Saints missed their first 10 shots overall and turned the ball over three times.
Maryville finally scored at the 4:39 mark thanks to a pair of free throws, but the Golden Suns continued to keep a comfortable margin and led by 19 going into the second quarter.
In the second quarter, Mayville got their footing offensively and after shooting just 12% in the first quarter, improved to 54% in the second quarter. That helped them trim Tech's lead down to 13 points by halftime, 40-27.
In the third quarter, the Golden Suns regained some of their early success and pushed their lead out to 20 points by the 4:54 mark. Save for a few occasions in which the Saints got the deficit to 19 points, the Golden Suns led comfortably by at least 20 points the remainder of the period and went into the fourth quarter up by 21, 63-42.
At the very beginning of the fourth quarter, the Golden Suns grabbed their largest lead of the game at 23 points on a pair of technical free throws made by
Pacious McDaniel. About a minute later, the Saints hit a seemingly innocuous three-pointer, but it ended up sparking a 22-0 run that saw the Saint get to within a single point by the 2:06 mark.
The Golden Suns finally were able to snap the run and scored their first field goal of the quarter at the 1:55 mark on a layup by
Dana Thompson.
Maryville would not get any closer the rest of the way as they suddenly went ice cold from the floor, missing their last four shots of the game. Two of those misses were blocks by the Golden Suns with the most significant one coming from
ClaraGrace Prater as she denied a potential game-tying three-point shot with 15 seconds left.
Following the block, Prater got the rebound and was promptly fouled. She would go to the free throw line and iced the game away with a pair of makes to push the score out to its final of 69-64.
For the Golden Suns, they were led in scoring by McDaniel as she scored 24 points on 8-of-12 shooting overall and was 8-for-8 from the charity stripe. McDaniel would be the only player in double figures for Tech, but four others had at least seven points.
The Golden Suns will now prepare to jump back into conference play and hit the road this Saturday afternoon. They will be heading to Arkadelphia to take on Henderson State. Tip-off is scheduled for 1 p.m.
