ARKADELPHIA, Ark. – The SWOSU women's basketball team had their second game in the town of Arkadelphia, this time against Ouachita Baptist on Saturday. Despite a strong first half including a second quarter that saw SWOSU outscore the Tigers 24-5, the Lady Dawgs could not close it out in a 57-50 loss.
 
SWOSU had to weather a quick start from Ouachita who knocked down their first four shot attempts and got ahead by as many as five in the early minutes of the game. Layni Zinn opened up with six early points and Mason Jones had two quick steals in the first frame.
 
The second quarter saw SWOSU raise their output on both sides of the ball, after the Tigers took a 21-17 lead with 7:34 left to go in the half they would not score again. The Lady Dawgs would go on a 19-0 run to close out the half. SWOSU only allowed the Tigers to shoot 2-9 from the field in the quarter and forced nine turnovers to just two for themselves. The Lady Bulldogs went 6-10 from the deep ball in the quarter which is the most in a single quarter this year. Both Layni (Zinn) and Averi Zinn notched 11 points in the half with Averi going 3-3 from beyond the arc. Their 22 points outscored the entirety of the Tigers in the first half.
 
All SWOSU needed to do in the second half was control the momentum and minimize Ouachita runs, which is exactly what they were doing shortly after halftime. The Lady Dawgs were able to maintain and even grow the lead to as many as 20 at 48-28 with 2:37 left in the third quarter, but a late 9-0 run by Ouachita made the score 48-37 going into the final frame and had taken all the momentum away from the Lady Dawgs. SWOSU shot just 5-15 in the quarter and 1-6 (16.7%) from the three.
 
The Tigers found their groove in the fourth quarter and stifled the Lady Bulldogs for the last 10 minutes of the game. They outscored SWOSU 20-2 in the quarter and held the Lady Dawgs without a made basket for over 10 minutes of game time. After SWOSU went up by 20 in the third quarter, the Tigers went on a 28-0 run, which matched the scoring output of the whole game beforehand.
 
SWOSU went 1-15 in the final frame and 0-8 from the deep ball. For the game, the Lady Dawgs were 18-61 (29.5%) from the field compared to Ouachita's 22-45 (48.9%).
 
Averi had 15 points and four assists to lead SWOSU. Both Layni and Chloe Cantrell grabbed six rebounds.
 
SWOSU (7-7, 3-5 GAC) will be on their way back to Weatherford to host Southern Arkansas on Thursday, January 16 at 5:30 pm inside the PEC.