Alva Review-Courier -

ALVA Okla. – The Northwestern Oklahoma State University women's basketball team struggled to find any type of momentum. As Northwestern continued to play host to the GAC/MIAA/NSIC Challenge this year. The Lady Rangers would draw the Bronchos of Central Oklahoma to finish the challenge. The Rangers were never able to overcome a slow start as they lost Saturday evening by a final 84-49. NWOSU would score the first basket of the game off of a Bailey Brown layup. However that would be their only lead of the game. The Bronchos would use a 23-3 scoring run to close the quarter out thanks to the defense. UCO held NWOSU to 2-14 shooting from the field that quarter. Rangers would trail 23-5 after the first quarter. Rangers would end up winning the second quarter 17-14 but it was such a close quarter neither team was able to build anything from it. Central Oklahoma continued to control the game from start to finish. They might have lost the quarter but they made sure to never let the Lady Rangers get to much momentum at any point. After a 7-0 run to start the second half for the Bronchos this brought the lead to 20 points which was just too much for the Rangers to handle. UCO's 3-point attack would continue to crush NWOSU every time it seemed they would bring the game back within striking distance. They would hit four, three pointers in the 3rd quarter alone. The fourth quarter saw the Bronchos continue their hot shooting. They would shoot 47% from the field while adding three more 3-pointers. While on the other hand the Rangers shot only 22% from the field. This allowed UCO to continue to build their lead up. The final score would be 84-49. Kalea King and Brown were the only Rangers in double figures 15 and 17 points respectively. The Lady Rangers dug themselves into a whole throughout the night starting with taking care of the ball offensively. The Rangers would turn the ball over 23 times giving the Bronchos 26 points off the turnovers. It was also an off night shooting as well Saturday evening only 25% from the field and 23% from the three line. Lady Rangers defense was able to create 17 turnovers on their own. The difference was they were not able to turn those into points like the Bronchos did as they were outscored 26-4 in points off turnovers. Rangers will be back in action Thursday evening when they travel to the state of Kansas to take on Emporia State University at 5:30.