ORU Women Fall Short, 59-51, At IUPUI

NewsOn6.com and ORU

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. - The Oral Roberts women's basketball team took a 27-7 run in the second half of action but it wasn't enough to take over the game, as the Golden Eagles suffered a 59-51 defeat at IUPUI Monday evening in The Jungle.

ORU evens its season record to 9-9 and falls to 2-5 in Summit League action, while IUPUI evens its overall record to 9-9 and improves to 4-3 in conference play.

Junior forward Janae Voelker (Newton, Kan.) kept her double-figure scoring streak alive with a game-high 13 points, to take the streak to 18 games this year, and was just short of a double-double with nine rebounds. Freshman forward Jordan Pyle (Mustang, Okla.) posted her second-straight double-digit rebound performance with a team-high 10 rebounds, while senior guard Mariana Camargo (Blumenau, Brazil) and freshman guard Georgia Jones (Manchester, England) each chipped in 12 and 11 points, respectively. Jones also added a game-high seven assists, while Voelker registered a game-high five steals.

Jones started off the Golden Eagles scoring with a jumper in the opening minute of action, while freshman forward Cristal Turner (Maidstone, England) made a wide open three-pointer to push ORU's lead to 5-2 at the 18:49 mark. Two back-to-back buckets from Voelker gave the Golden Eagles a 9-4 lead with 16:08 remaining before the Jaguars' Brittany Ransom and Julia Whitted cut ORU's lead to one with a layup and a jumper. Camargo's jumper put the Golden Eagles up 11-8 with 14:25 to play before a Whitted jumper gave IUPUI its first lead of the game, 12-11, at the 12-minute mark.

The Jaguars took an 11-2 run to go up by double-digits, 23-13, at 7:31 and then took a 9-2 run to go up by 17, 32-15, with 2:23 left in the first half. Camargo finished out ORU's scoring efforts in the half with a free throw, as the Golden Eagles were down, 16-32, heading into the break.

Whitted opened up IUPUI's second-half scoring to take its largest lead of the game, 34-16, with 19:41 to play. Jones and Voelker sparked the ORU offense to fight back to within a single-digit scoring difference, 28-36, with 16:41 remaining and the Golden Eagles kept chipping at the lead through the next five minutes, taking over the lead, 38-37, with 11:13 to go. After a 6-2 ORU run in the next four minutes of action, the Golden Eagles were up 43-39, as the Jaguars chipped away from that lead and took back the lead on a Ransom three-pointer, 44-43, with 4:51 remaining.

The Golden Eagles kept it to within a one-point game, 45-46, on a senior center Monah Pegorari (Sao Paulo, Brazil) layup and ORU was still at a one possession game, 47-50, with 1:47 left. The Jaguars then pounded out the next six of eight points on free throws to take care of the rest.

ORU shot a lowly 37.0% (20-54) from the field, including 14.3% (2-14) from three-point range and 56.3% (9-16) from behind the free throw line.

The Golden Eagles out-rebounded the Jaguars, 42-38, but IUPUI scored seven more free throws than ORU.

IUPUI also shot a lowly 35.7% (20-56) and 20.0% (3-15) from behind the arc but hit a high note at the charity stripe, shooting 76.2% (16-21).

ORU returns home next weekend to host Southern Utah on Saturday, Jan. 24, while UMKC comes to town on Monday, Jan. 26.