JBU women hold on for victory
■ Cameron comes through in the clutch for the Golden Eagles.
Baily Cameron scored 84 points in three games this past week, but perhaps none were bigger than two free throws with the game on the line Saturday.
Cameron’s two free throws with 4.8 seconds left gave John Brown a 72-68 lead and proved to be the winning points in a 72-70 victory over Texas Wesleyan on senior
night at Bill George Arena.
Cameron scored 13 of her game-high 22 points in the fourth quarter as JBU (17-10, 11-7) remained in the hunt for a top four seed in the Sooner Athletic Conference standings. The former Siloam Springs standout also had 11 rebounds for her sixth double-double of the season after scoring 30 points in a win at Bacone on Tuesday, Feb. 13, and 32 in a loss against Southwestern Assemblies of God on Thursday, Feb. 15.
“I know that we have all talked and we really want to finish this season strong,” Cameron said, “because we’ve had some ups and downs throughout the season, which every team has. Yeah we just really want to finish strong and I feel like we’re really coming to a
point where we are clicking like we were beginning of season, and hopefuly we’ll make a run at it.”
The Golden Eagles remained in fifth place in the conference with two games to play this week. The top four teams in the league will host an opening round game of the Sooner Athletic Conference Tournament on Feb. 27, and JBU is the host site for the semifinals and finals on March 2-3.
“We’re game by game and possession by possession,” said JBU coach Jeff Soderquist. “We’ve just got to focus on that, because even hosting first round here, some of that’s out of our control, and we’ve just got to deal with what we can control.”
John Brown led Texas Wesleyan 37-27 at halftime led by 14 points from senior Jana Schammel, including four 3-pointers and 10 from senior Rosa Orpo. Schammel and Orpo finished with 17 and 13 points, respectively.
The lead reached 13 early in the third quarter before Texas Wesleyan (7-10, 5-13) cut the lead to 47-46 on a 3-pointer from Alycia Louallen, but JBU pushed its advantage back up to 52-48.
Cameron, who was in foul trouble early, went to work in the fourth quarter. She scored nine straight points for JBU as the Golden Eagles took a 64-54 lead with less than two minutes remaining.
Another Cameron basket made it 66-58 with just more than a minute left, but three straight JBU turnovers led to five straight TWU points as the Rams cut it to 66-63.
Freshman Taylor Fergen knocked down four straight free throws for JBU in the last minute, and Cameron hit her two foul shots as JBU iced the victory.