ST. LOUIS - Missouri Baptist University played host to the Central Baptist Mustangs for a Saturday afternoon AMC contest, and the Spartans held control of the game throughout a majority of it, but CBC made a late push that forced overtime and came away with an 82-74 victory over MBU.

The Carl & Deloris Petty SRC played host to a pair of conference foes, and the beginning of the matchup featured back and forth action that had Missouri Baptist in the lead 15-14 at the end of the first quarter. Sophia Horton led the scoring as she had nine points, and the Mustangs were capitalizing on offensive rebounds with seven second chance points.

Despite the Mustangs limiting Horton by face guarding her, the Spartans lit up the scoreboard in the second frame they gained a ten point lead at the break, 38-28. 

Aliyah Williams came alive knocking down a handful of shots on her way to 10 points along with four rebounds and two assists at halftime. Kayleigh Winch and Mariana Cubero also put the ball in the basket as they had eight and nine, respectively. Cubero racked up seven rebounds in the first half alone as well.

The Spartans came out hot after the break as they went on a 7-0 run to make it 45-28, and they held a 14 point lead going into the final quarter.

The Mustangs came alive in the fourth quarter as they seemingly could not miss, shooting 64% from the field in the frame. They quickly started chipping away at the Spartans lead and made it  a  one possession game with a minute and a half left. 

With just 23 seconds left the Mustangs made a layup that cut MBU's lead to just one, and they were able to force a turnover getting the ball back with a chance for the win. CBC was able to get a layup with just 1.1 seconds left on the clock, and Coach Edgar Mendez called a timeout to advance the ball, down by one. Cubero was the inbounder for Missouri Baptist, and she threw a lob from halfcourt to a back-cutting Riley Jansen who high pointed the ball with a chance for a tip-in and was fouled. At the charity stripe with a chance to win, Jansen made one of the two to force overtime.

The start of overtime was back and forth, but Central Baptist was able to pull away after a couple minutes as they would go on to beat the Spartans 82-74.

Cubero and Williams each had career highs with 18 points a piece. Cubero finished with 13 rebounds, four offensive, and Williams had a career high six rebounds.

Spartan Stat Leaders

Points: Cubero & Williams (18)

Rebounds: Cubero (13)

Steals: Winch, Jansen, and Audrey Payne (2)

Assists: Jansen, Williams, Payne, and Marija Runic (3)

Records

Missouri Baptist: 1-7 (1-3 AMC)

Central Baptist: 4-4 (2-2 AMC)

Next Game

The Spartans will travel to UHSP to take on the Eutectics at 5:30 PM next Thursday (Dec.12).