WEATHERFORD, Okla. – The Arkansas Tech women's basketball team took a big step forward towards securing a berth in the upcoming 2024 Great American Conference Women's Basketball Tournament as they picked up an 80-70 win on the road at Southwestern Oklahoma on Thursday night.
One of the major contributing factors in the Golden Suns' pivotal road win was the overall play of senior transfer guard
Maisa Marcal. The Brazilian loaded up her stat sheet against the Bulldogs but fell a single point shy of joining the very exclusive company of country-mate and former Golden Sun, Roselis Silva, with a triple-double.
Despite falling just short of program history, Marcal's final stat line was still impressive and featured nine points and season-highs in rebounds (10) and assists (11).
Early on in the game, Marcal had her fingerprints on the game as she had four of her rebounds (all defensive) and three of her assists in the first quarter alone. As a team, the Golden Suns had a four-point lead, 20-16.
In the second quarter, the Golden Suns started to pull away from SWOSU as Marcal continued to dish out assists and pull down rebounds while also starting to score herself. By the end of the second quarter, Marcal was up to six rebounds six assists while the Golden Suns held a commanding 16-point lead after out-scoring the Bulldogs, 20-8 in the period.
Third quarter action was back and forth with a ton of scoring as each team scored over 25 points in the period. The Golden Suns were able to maintain a comfortable lead, however and entered the fourth quarter with a 17-point advantage. Marcal's count added four assists and one rebound.
After falling behind by the largest margin of the game of 20 points early in the fourth quarter after a trio of Marcal free throws, SWOSU began to make inroads against the Tech lead and trimmed it to eight points by the 7:24 mark.
The Golden Suns eventually worked their lead back out to double digits and staved off any further Bulldog threats for the big win.
In addition to Marcal, the Golden Suns had another double-double performer with
Dana Thompson scoring 14 points and 12 rebounds. Thompson's point total was one back of
ClaraGrace Prater's team-high 15.
The Golden Suns will now prepare for another road test this Saturday as they will be at Northwestern Oklahoma. Tip-off is scheduled for 1 p.m. from the Percefull Fieldhouse in Alva.
