FAYETTEVILLE -- Abilene Christian answered several Arkansas runs to stay within striking distance Wednesday night, but the Razorbacks applied the knockout punch early in the fourth quarter.
Arkansas put together a 20-0 to put away the Wildcats for a 79-65 victory at Walton Arena.
Arkansas 79, Abilene Christian 65
Abilene Christian 14 10 23 18 -- 65
Arkansas 20 14 20 25 -- 79
Abilene Christian (3-2): Golightly 24, Mabry 11, Oluoch 9, Kirgan 6, Williamson 5, Galindo 3, Larson 3, Allen 2.
Arkansas (1-0): Monk 15, Northcross-Baker 15, Mason 13, Willliams 12, Cosper 11, Thomas 7, Swenson 3, Zimmerman 3.
Three-Point Goals: Abilene Christian 11-34, Arkansas 10-25. Rebounds: Arkansas 44, Abilene Christian43. Turnovers: Abilene Christian 20, Arkansas 12. Technical Fouls: Arkansas, Cosper, bench.
Officials: Mark Zentz, Bruce Morris Pualani Spurlcok.
Attendance: 1132.
Abilene Christian (3-2) opened the fourth quarter with a three-pointer from Dominique Golightly to pull within 54-50. The Razorbacks (5-2) answered with their huge run, holding the Wildcats scoreless for more than four minutes to take a 74-50 lead.
University of Arkansas, Fayetteville Coach Mike Neighbors said his team did a great job defending a team that had scored 90 or more points a couple of times this season.
"This is an explosive team," Neighbors said. "They've won their league I think two years in a row. We never anticipated it to be easy, and it wasn't. I thought there were times we made it look that way because we played pretty well. Our transition was really good tonight.
"I thought we were really resilient tonight. We had some adversity with foul troubles, and we didn't seem to miss a beat."
Arkansas had five players score 10 or more points. Raven Northcross-Baker and Malica Monk led the way with 15 points each, while Jailyn Mason added 13, Kiara Williams 12 and Devin Cosper 11. Mason also dished out 8 assists and grabbed 7 rebounds in 34 minutes.
The Razorbacks scored 28 points off 20 Wildcats turnovers.
Cosper, Monk and Keiryn Swenson each drained three-pointers during the 20-0 run, all coming after Abilene Christian turnovers. Williams' two free throws capped the run with 5:36 left.
Northcross-Baker said her job is to bring energy off the bench, and her 15 points provided a boost.
"When I come in, I feel like I should do everything in my ability to get my team a win. Today I brought a lot of energy and I felt like that's what we needed in the fourth quarter," Northcross-Baker said. "And the way we condition ourself, we deserve it."
Abilene Christian Coach Julie Goodenough said turnovers were one of the things that spelled doom for her team, which cut double-digit deficits into single digits on multiple occasions.
"Our live-ball turnovers and our missed layups were hard for us to recover from because Arkansas does such a great job pushing the ball down the floor," Goodenough said. "They are faster than us at every position. Turnovers resulted in high percentage shots for them, or they got to the free-throw line."
Golightly, a 5-11 sophomore, poured in a game-high 24 point, including seven three-pointers, for Abilene Christian. Makayla Mabry scored 11 for the Wildcats off the bench.
The Razorbacks trailed briefly in the first half but led by as many as 11. Williams tallied 10 points and six rebounds in the first half.
Arkansas took advantage at the free-throw line, making 13 of 17 in the first quarter, while the Wildcats made just 2 of 6. Abilene Christian also committed 13 turnovers.
The Wildcats started the second half with a 7-0 spurt capped by a Taudenciah Oluoch putback to get within 34-31 and force an Arkansas timeout.
Arkansas travels to Kansas to take on the Jayhawks at 2 p.m. Sunday.
Sports on 11/30/2017