No. 4 in 2018 – OC's Clift earns All-America honor, finishes season with flurry
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December 28, 2018
OKLAHOMA CITY (Dec. 28, 2018) – Already established as a prolific scorer at the NCAA Division II level, Oklahoma Christian's Addy Clift took it to another level in 2018.
A late flurry by Clift helped earn her All-America honors to cap her junior season, which ranks No. 4 among top Oklahoma Christian athletic stories for 2018.
Clift already had secured the Heartland Conference's scoring title as the Lady Eagles entered their final three regular-season games of the 2017-18 campaign. Just for good measure, though, Clift had one of her best games of the season against No. 2-ranked Lubbock Christian (Texas), pouring in 35 points – including 27 after halftime to fuel a huge OC rally – as the Lady Eagles pushed LCU before falling 73-66.
Then Clift heated up. Playing on the road against the Heartland's second-best team – one that made the Division II tournament – Clift rolled up 40 points against Arkansas-Fort Smith, just two shy of her Heartland single-game scoring record, set the previous November at Emporia State (Kan.).
In the regular-season finale, Clift went 5 of 10 from 3-point range and had 28 points in a win at Rogers State. She again went 5 of 10 from long range in OC's Heartland Conference Championship tournament opener, finishing with 32 points in an 83-72 win over Newman (Kan.) – the Lady Eagles' first postseason win as a Division II member.
The next day, Clift had 25 points as the Lady Eagles fell to Lubbock Christian in the tournament semifinals. Her 160 points over that five-game stretch lifted her season average to 21.7 points per game and caught the attention of those voting on regional and national awards.
Clift received All-South Central Region first-team honors on the Division II Conference Commissioners Association list – the first OC player ever to do so – and sports information directors from around the nation subsequently voted Clift onto the D2CCA All-America honorable mention list, making her the second OC player in three years to receive All-America recognition.
As 2018 ended, Clift's high-scoring ways continued during her senior season. In her final game of the calendar year on Dec. 17, she broke OC's single-game scoring record with a magnificent 44-point outing in a 97-96 win over Eastern New Mexico. She will enter 2019 with 1,700 career points, just 79 shy of becoming the Heartland's all-time leading scorer.
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