The university women’s basketball team defeated the University of Central Arkansas Sugar Bears on Wednesday, Jan. 29 at the University Center. With a final score of 63-42, the Lady Lions increase their streak to three consecutive wins.

After finishing the first half with a tied score, the Lady Lions increased their efforts and were able to keep the lead on the Sugar Bears. 

Head Coach Ayla Guzzardo commented on what she noticed about the girls at the night’s game.

“Our change of energy between the first half and the second half,” expressed Guzzardo. “We turned it up in the second half. Hopefully, our locker room lecture got a point across.”

Guzzardo shared that she was proud of senior guard Celica Sterling for shaking off her 0-for-7 in the first half to lead the team in scoring for the game.

“Celica was 0-for-7 in the first half,” said Guzzardo. “As a shooter, a scorer, that’s hard to do, especially to come back from that. People put their head down—not her. She pushed through. She kept taking those shots, and she’s successful in doing it.”

Guzzardo explained how the team will be prepping for their next game against the University of New Orleans.

“Every day is a different day,” said Guzzardo. “The next game we play UNO. It’s a rival school. They’re gonna bring everything they have. They’re ahead of us in rankings, and we’re really trying to get to that conference tournament for the first time in over six years. It’s something that we haven’t done before. So, all of this is new territory for us, but our girls are working hard. That’s all I ask.”

Sterling shared what goes through her mind before making a shot.

“The first half was horrible,” stated Sterling. “I couldn’t buy a shot–I don’t know. Everything was coming off my hand wrong. It was a lot, but defensively I was there, so that was okay. That’s why my coaches were really getting on me. ‘Make the next one. Make the next one.’ Second half was different. It was good, but nothing changed in my head. I was still gonna shoot whatever shots I was gonna shoot.”

Junior forward Caitlyn Williams was the game’s second-highest scorer for the Lady Lions. She described how she felt about the win.

“I am very proud of how we played tonight,” shared Williams. “We knew we needed to get another win because we’ve been on a winning streak, so we knew he had to keep it going. They were just in our way. So to get them out of our way, we had to come out here and do what we needed to do. I am very happy with how we played. We played together. We picked it up in the second half, so I couldn’t really ask for anything else.”

The Lady Lions play their next game against the University of New Orleans on Saturday, Feb. 1 at 1 p.m. in the University Center.