Reddies Top Golden Suns 66-55

Henderson State University completed a women’s basketball regular season sweep of Arkansas Tech University by defeating the Golden Suns 66-55 at the Duke Wells Center in Arkadelphia on Saturday afternoon.

Henderson State (13-4 overall, 8-3 Great American Conference) held Arkansas Tech without a made field goal over the final 7:06 of the opening quarter and built a 16-6 lead after 10 minutes.

The Golden Suns’ offensive woes continued in the second quarter. ATU had more turnovers (16) and fouls (10) than field goals (6) during the first half and the Reddies went to the intermission with a 33-16 advantage.

Arkansas Tech got back in the game during the third quarter behind its defense. The Golden Suns limited the Reddies to 3-of-20 shooting from the floor during the period and pulled within 40-31 with 3:08 to go in the third quarter.

Six straight Henderson State points pushed the Reddies’ lead back to 15 points late in the third period. Undeterred, the Golden Suns rode 13 second-half points from Ke’Vonshaye Stackhouse to cut HSU’s edge to 62-55 with one minute remaining in the fourth quarter.

The Reddies held on by making 4-of-6 free throws over the final 55.9 seconds and forcing Arkansas Tech to miss six of its final seven field goal attempts.

“We missed so many little shots in the first half,” said Dave Wilbers, ATU head coach. “We looked at the shot chart at halftime, and there were a bunch of misses from the lane. We also had some uncharacteristic turnovers. It was just a bad first half. I was proud of the team in the second half. We battled, but that first half was too hard to overcome.”

Stackhouse finished with 16 points for the Golden Suns (6-10, 3-7), who committed just three second-half turnovers. Jacie Higgins contributed 11 points and 10 rebounds. Lyrik Williams notched 10 points and six rebounds.

Pink Jones paced five Reddies in double figures in scoring with 17 points. She was 8-of-9 from the field.

The Golden Suns will visit nationally-ranked Southwestern Oklahoma State University for a 5:30 p.m. GAC contest at the Pioneer Cellular Events Center in Weatherford, Okla., on Thursday, Jan. 24.

Radio station KCJC 102.3 FM and www.arkansastechsports.com will provide live coverage.