OKLAHOMA CITY – OCU continued their run through the regular season unbeaten as they posted a 73-57 win over cross-town rival Southern Nazarene on Thursday at Abe Lemons Arena.
The Stars, ranked second in NAIA Division I women’s basketball, advanced to 14-0, 9-0 in Sooner Athletic Conference play after taking down the 20th-ranked Crimson Storm.
OCU was lead by a game-high 26 points and six assists by Donica Cosby. Cosby, a senior from Coldwater, Miss., was 9-of-16 on the night, including draining three of her six 3-point attempts. She also added four rebounds, two steals and a block for the Stars.
“I thought Donica had a good game because I thought the last two days in practice I thought her work ethic was unbelievable,” OCU coach Rob Edmisson said. “I knew she worked hard to get ready to play this game.”
Starr Fairbanks, a senior from Cincinnati, extended her string of double-digit scoring games to five after putting up 19 points and a game-high eight rebounds for OCU. The Stars got 10 points, seven rebounds and six steals by Lauren Gober, a sophomore from Newcastle, Okla.
The Stars went on 14-0 run in the first half that gave the Stars a 26-9 advantage. During the spurt, the trio of Fairbanks, Cosby and Gober accounted for all the OCU offense. OCU held the 45-30 halftime lead after outscoring the Crimson Storm 18-2 off of turnovers and 24-10 in the paint.
“We can do better,” Cosby said of the team’s performance. “Coach talked about us having a higher intensity in practice than we do in the game. We’ve got so much talent and it’s kind of hard to simulate in games and we have more competitiveness at practice, I think.”
The second half saw scoring at a premium as both teams could only manage 14 points combined in the final 9:02 of the contest. The Stars committed 10 second-half turnovers to keep the scoring margin from breaching 20 points. The high-water mark of a 19-point margin occurred with 3:42 to play and a score of 72-53.
OCU’s usually deep bench only contributed 10 points in the game and the three leading scorers played an average of 30 minutes apiece.
To start out our energy just wasn’t there, our intensity wasn’t there,” Fairbanks said. “The past two nights we’ve played on a high level and tonight we kind of got bored out there, and that’s something we can’t do. We’ve still got to play hard all the way through.”
OCU won the battle of the boards 42-28, forced 25 turnovers and had 14 steals in the game. The Stars, second in the NAIA in assists per game, were credited with 17 assists on 28 made baskets. Southern Nazarene’s only lead was after putting in their first shot of the night.
“I know it’s got to be frustrating when you win a game by 15, 16, 17 points and you’re not happy,” Edmisson said. “But it’s a big picture thing, and what we’re trying to teach our kids is just to sustain effort and energy every possession no matter what the scoreboard says. We’ve got to come up with a creative way to do some things that are going to challenge our kids in the game.”
OCU takes to the road as they travel to Chickasha, Okla., to face USAO on Saturday at 6 p.m.
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