SEARCY, Ark. – Northwestern Oklahoma State University women's basketball remains winless at Harding as the Lady Rangers dropped the regular season final Saturday afternoon 70-47 on the road in Searcy, Arkansas, to the Lady Bisons.
Northwestern finished the regular season with a 12-17 overall mark and 9-13 and in eighth place in the Great American Conference. The 2018-19 Lady Rangers tied the highest win totals, both overall and conference wins, in the NCAA for the program.
The Lady Rangers will return to the court in their first ever GAC Championship Tournament game Thursday evening when they take on Southwestern Oklahoma State at 5:45 p.m. inside Bruin Fieldhouse in Bartlesville, Oklahoma.
Sophomore post player Bailey Brown finished the regular season as the leading scorer for the Lady Rangers after she added 13 points against Harding for a team high. Jade Jones was a double-digit scorer in Saturday's game with 12 points, and Jakeria Otey added 10.
Brown had a team high seven rebounds, followed by Kalea King with five.
Northwestern overcame struggles from the floor in the first half to cut the game to a seven-point difference by the end of the third quarter. The Lady Rangers started the second half trailing by 17, and Harding quickly made it a 20-point advantage with a three on its first possession of the third.
Jones then spurred a 10-0 run by the Lady Rangers over the next three minutes with a quick two points after a Presley Payahsape steal, followed by a steal of her own and a fastbreak layup. Jones had five steals in the game.
After a missed three-point attempt on the Harding end of the floor, King pulled down the board and pushed it up to Brown for an easy two points. At the 6:53 mark, the Otey forced another Harding turnover which led to a freshmen connection as Kyleigh Leverich found Payahsape down load for a basket.
Leverich came away with a steal a couple possessions later and Otey finished the play with a fastbreak layup to make it 39-29 with 5:14 to go in the third. Harding went back up by 15 with three minutes to go, but the Rangers battled back with nine straight points, capped by an Otey three with 14 seconds remaining in the third.
Unfortunately, the Lady Rangers went cold in the fourth quarter as they were outscored by the home team 25-9 in the final 10 minutes.
Northwestern got the best of the Lady Bisons with 16 points off of turnovers and 15-5 in the fast break points category. But it was the overall shooting struggles that proved to be the difference in the game with the Lady Rangers shooting just 23-percent from the field.
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