Oral Roberts' Season Ends With Loss to Arkansas

The Golden Eagles fell behind in the first half and could not recover.

Thursday, May 26th 2011, 12:17 pm

By: News On 6

Oral Roberts' Season Ends With Loss to Arkansas

Originally Published: Mar 23, 2011 10:43 PM CDT

Corey DeMoss
Oklahoma Sports Staff Writer

TULSA, Okla. – The Oral Roberts women were eliminated from the WNIT Wednesday in a 78-59 loss to Arkansas.

ORU (23-11) managed to hang with the Razorbacks (22-11) for the first few minutes, but Arkansas pulled away with a 12-2 run and never looked back. The Golden Eagles trailed 42-30 at halftime, and Arkansas continued to pull away in the second half.

Arkansas shot well all night, hitting 52 percent of its shots. Chrisstasia Walter led all scorers with 26 points and hit five 3-pointers. Sarah Watkins scored 13 and C’eira Ricketts added 12. The Arkansas defense also shut down Kevi Luper, the nation's leading scorer.

Luper made only one field goal on the day and finished shooting 1-for-9 and scoring four points. Jordan Pyle led Oral Roberts with 15 points, Georgia Jones scored 14 and Dominique Allen scored 11. The Golden Eagles shot 43 percent, but took 11 fewer shots thanks to committing 22 turnovers and being outrebounded 30-21.

The loss ends ORU’s season after its third trip to the NIT in school history. The Golden Eagles now are 4-3 all-time in the tournament.