Box Score

BETHANY, Okla. — Abbey Marra scored 17 points and pulled down eight rebounds for No. 19 Southern Nazarene in a 72-63 loss to No. 22 Lubbock Christian, Saturday afternoon inside the Sawyer Center.

The Lady Chaparrals (16-6, 13-3 SAC) move into a tie for second place with the Crimson Storm (19-5, 13-3 SAC), but have the tiebreaker by sweeping the season series if the tie should remain the rest of the year. The loss also snaps a seven-game win streak for SNU and increases LCU's streak to seven straight.

“I am proud of what we've done the past couple of weeks,” said SNU head coach Lori Carter. “I was disappointed today because for whatever reason they (LCU) just had more energy than we did. They got to the loose balls and came up with big rebounds. We just didn't do the things we needed to do to win the game.”

LCU couldn't miss in the second half from 3-point range as the Lady Chaps went 9-for-17 (.529) after shooting just 2-for-6 in the first half. Severyn Smith, Haley Burton and Brittany Hampton all hit a trio of threes as Smith led the Lady Chaps with 16 points. Burton added 14 while Hampton had 12.

For the second straight night, Southern Nazarene was just 1-for-12 from beyond the arc, yet still shot over 40 percent from the field. The Storm were 19-for-46 from the floor, but went cold in the second half. After shooting 57.1 percent from the field in the first half, SNU went just 7-for-25 (.280) from the field and 1-of-6 from 3-point range.

“When things are going that well like they have up until last night, you hope you shoot like that all season, but that's tough to do,” said Carter in talking about SNU leading the NAIA in 3-point percentage coming into the game. “I think we started thinking about it. The bad thing is when you don't hit from outside, it doesn't open up things for you on the inside and that showed today.”

SNU still had three players in double figures as Logan Martin scored 12 points while Audra Skimbo had 10. Martin also grabbed seven rebounds. Both Sharmeda Johnson and Jamie Bottger each scored seven as Johnson grabbed six rebounds.

The Storm held a one-point lead at halftime even though they turned the ball over 14 times. SNU led 30-29 to start the second half and led 38-36 on a Martin free throw with 15:55 left before two straight treys put LCU up 42-38.

SNU answered to tie it at 42, but Smith scored seven points in a 10-2 run to give LCU a 52-44 lead with 11 minutes left. The Storm cut it to 55-54 on a pair of Skimbo free throws with 6:38 remaining, but that was as close as SNU came. The Lady Chaps responded with an 11-2 run to take a 66-56 lead and then took its biggest lead of the game twice at 69-58 and 71-60 before putting it away.

The Crimson Storm now will host Northwestern Oklahoma State, Thursday, at 8 p.m. in the final game of a four-game home stand.