Box Score

Warrensburg, Mo. - The Southwest Baptist University women's basketball team fell in a tough MIAA road opener on Saturday afternoon at Central Missouri 80-59. With the loss SBU drops to 7-3 (1-2 MIAA) on the season.

The Bearcats and Jennies played a tight first half, with SBU heading into the second half trailing by only six points. After a UCM bucket opened up the game, SBU took their first lead of the afternoon off of a three from Kiana Peterson to give the Bearcats the 3-2 lead. UCM responded with a 7-0 run as the Bearcats trailed 9-3 with 6:13 left in the quarter. After a Mackenzie Skupa layup, the Jennies once again responded with 7-2 run with SBU trailing 16-7 with 4:05 left in the first quarter. However, over the next three and a half minutes SBU went on an 10-0 run to re-take the lead at 17-16 with 1:28 to go in the quarter. A Madison Strong three kicked off the run, and was concluded with an old fashioned three point play from Morgan Henderson. After the two squads exchanged leads, a three from UCM fell with 6 seconds left in the quarter as SBU trailed 23-21 heading into the second quarter.

SBU came out in the second quarter and quickly re-took the lead when Megan Rosenbohm found Caylee Richardson for another old fashioned three point play to give SBU the 24-23 lead. The two teams continued to exchange leads, and a three from Rosenbohm with 5:45 left in the half gave SBU their largest lead of the day at 33-30. After a free throw from Rosenbohm tied the game at 34-34 with 3:15 remaining, UCM used a 9-3 run to close out the half as the Bearcats went into the break trailing 43-37.

Coming out of the half the Jennies used an 11-0 run to quickly push their lead to double-digits. Back-to-back layups from Richardson and Rosenbohm cut the deficit back to 13 with 2:33 left in the quarter, but a 10-5 run from UCM to close out the quarter puts the Bearcats down 64-46 heading to the final quarter of action. SBU was unable to pull any close in the final quarter as the Bearcats would eventually fall 80-59.

SBU was led in scoring by Caylee Richardson who had 14 points off of 6-7 shooting from the field. Mackenzie Skupa added 12 points and Morgan Henderson chipped in 11 points, both off of the bench. As a team SBU shot 41.7% from the field, 30.0% from beyond the arc, and 72.7% from the free throw line.

The Bearcats will step out of MIAA action on Thursday, December 29 when they host Kansas Christian College. Tip-off is set for 5:30 p.m. from the Meyer Sports Center in Bolivar.