Sugar Bears, Cowgirls Renew Rivalry on Thursday

Courtesy University of Central Arkansas Athletics Department

CONWAY —Two years ago, McNeese State ran roughshod through the Southland Conference with a 15-1 league record. Their lone loss? A 74-73 overtime setback in Conway.

After the Cowgirls won in Lake Charles a couple weeks later to tie the season series, the teams met up once again in the postseason with much higher stakes – hooking up for a third time in the Southland Conference Tournament championship game. The Cowgirls won that one handily, defeating the Sugar Bears 71-50 to punch their ticket to the NCAA Tournament.

McNeese came close to repeating as league champion in 2012, going 13-3 in conference play. Unfortunately for the Cowgirls, two of those losses came to the Sugar Bears, who swept the season series and edged the Cowgirls with a 14-2 league mark to win their first Southland championship.

The first of those losses for the Cowgirls was a two-overtime thriller in Conway that ended with Central Arkansas prevailing 71-70 in front of a crowd of 2,312. The second was a 64-53 Sugar Bear victory in Lake Charles, making UCA responsible for three of the Cowgirls’ four league losses over the two-year span.

There would be no rematch in the tournament, however, as the Sugar Bears were upset in the first round by Nicholls and the Cowgirls went on to win for the second straight year.

The series renews on Thursday at 5:30 as the Cowgirls (8-9, 3-3 Southland) come into the Farris Center for the final time with all-conference twin guards Ashlyn and Caitlyn Baggett – the league’s highest-scoring duo at 32.3 points per game. Ashlyn Baggett is tied for the league with with an 18.8 scoring average for the season, while sister Caitlyn is 8th at 13.5.

The Sugar Bears (12-5, 5-1) answer with the next highest-scoring tandem in Megan Herbert (18.6) and Courtney Duever (13.1), the third and ninth-highest scorers in the league. That duo is also the best rebounding pair in the conference, with Herbert second in the league at 11.1 per game and Duever fourth at 8.4 for a total of 19.5.

In seven career games against the Cowgirls, Herbert has averaged 20 points and 11.3 rebounds and recorded five double-doubles as the Sugar Bears have won five of the seven meetings. Ashlyn Baggett has topped 20 points in three of her six meetings with the Sugar Bears and has averaged 18 points, while Caitlyn has averaged 10.9 points and 3.9 assists.

Of the Cowgirls’ three league losses, two have been by a total of six points as they dropped the conference opener at Northwestern State 64-62 and lost at home to Lamar in their last game 57-53. Their other loss was a 78-61 defeat at home to Nicholls State. They have a 29-point win over Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, a 17-point win at Stephen F. Austin and dealt co-leader Sam Houston State its only Southland loss with a 62-58 win in Lake Charles on Jan. 12.