JBU women hand No. 17 Rams first SAC loss

Tarrah Stephens and John Brown were not going to be denied on Saturday against one of the top teams in the nation.

Stephens scored a season-high 29 points and the Golden Eagles rallied from a slow start to hand No. 17 Texas Wesleyan its first conference loss and end the Rams’ 17game winning streak with an 83-70 victory inside Bill George Arena.

“It feels really good,” said Stephens, who also had eight rebounds. “We were really excited going into this game. We were really wanting to beat them because we felt like when we played them at their place that we could have played better. Getting that win here was really exciting.”

The win snapped a three-game losing skid for John Brown (12-7, 6-7) and avenged a 97-75 loss to the Rams in Fort Worth on Nov. 19.

“Actually watching the video tape of playing them down there, we actually offensively played pretty well down there,” said JBU coach Jeff Soderquist. “We scored 75 points. They went on a barrage of 3 pointers that they’re not known to do. They hit 15 threes on us. … I just thought they can’t do that again.

“Spreading out trying to stop threes was not in our favor. They’re just so good driving to the basket that we still packed it in. This time we did mark who their shooters were, so I thought we did a little bit better job on them.”

The Rams (18-2, 13-1) looked like the top team in the league early and bolted out to a 16-7 lead midway through the first quarter.

But JBU began to settle in and went on a 14-4 run to end the first quarter and take a 21-20 lead.