INCARNATE WORD 77, ABILENE CHRISTIAN 64
Hello Abilene Christian. Incarnate Word was happy to see you again. The Cardinals won 77-64 in Abilene Tuesday night to snap a four-game losing string in Lone Star Conference South Division action.
The last time UIW won was back on January 26 with a 56-52 decision in San Antonio over--Abilene Christian. The win pushed the Cardinals to 16-6 on the year and to 5-5 in the South Division. Abilene Christian falls to -14 and 1-10.
With all the other South teams playing on Wednesday, the standings show UIW in fifth position, one game behind both West Texas A&M and Angelo State at 6-4. Tomorrow night WTAM goes to first place Tarleton State (8-1) while Angelo State hosts Eastern New Mexico (4-5). What's so important is four teams advance to the Lone Star post-season championship tournament. The others go home.
For the remainder of the season Incarnate Word will play three of its four games at home. The first comes Saturday when Angelo State comes to the McDermott Center for a 7:30 p.m. tipoff.
Back in Abilene, senior forward Tracy Robinson got the game's first basket on his way to a game high 25 points on 11-17 shooting. It was tied at 2-2 at 17:22, the only time all night the points were even up. ACU led by one, 7-6 at 13:39 for its only edge all night. Junior forward Chris Johnson ended that with a layup putting the Cardinals on top 8-7 at 13:07. Incarnate Word would not trail again.
At halftime UIW was up eight, 36-28 and three times in the second half the advantage was 16 points. ACU managed to cut the deficit to under 10 only once. Otherwise the Cardinals were cruising. Incarnate Word shot the ball at a 50 per cent clip while the Wildcats were down at 34.2 for the game. Another significant factor was the 23 points UIW scored off 23 ACU miscues.
To go with Robinson's 25 points, Johnson turned in a double-double of 14 points and 10 rebounds. Senior guards Eric Stewart and Deleon Hines both finished with 10 points.
