In the last four meetings with Central Oklahoma, Tarleton State has clearly closed the gap with the perennial top team for the North Division.

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But once again, the TexAnns fell short to UCO, which needed a furious second-half comeback to rally past TSU in Wednesday's last quarterfinal game of the Lone Star Conference championship in Bartlesville.

Trailing by as much as 10 in the second half, the Bronchos (24-4) eventually clawed their way to a 66-63 win over Tarleton, the No. 4 seed in the South Division.

The game marked the fourth nail-biting quarterfinal game of the day at Bruin Fieldhouse with all four games decided by five points or less.

UCO, the top seed from the North and the No. 2 team in the latest South Central Regional rankings, will advance to play Texas A&M-Commerce in Friday's semifinal round.

Senior forward Lizzie Brenner, a two-time All-LSC North Division selection, paced the Bronchos with 22. Rose Anderson

Tarleton had three players in double-figures, led by Sonya Sundberg's 19 points. JoAnne Jones had a double-double of 18 points and 10 rebounds, while Morgan Stehling added 12 boards.  

Close calls with Tarleton are nothing new to UCO, which defeated the TexAnns by five in last year's regular season, before a four-point win in the 2008 LSC Tournament. And earlier this season, the Bronchos edged TSU by just three, 67-64 back in December.

It appeared Tarleton would finally outlast UCO, especially leading 47-37 early in the second half. TSU held a nine-point lead with 11 minutes remaining, but that's when UCO started to chip away. Eight straight points, including two baskets from Anderson cut the lead to one, but UCO never took the lead until Anderson hit a free throw to break a 61-61 tie with 1:35 to play.

Brenner added two free throws, but TSU cut it back to one on Sundberg's layup with 46 seconds to play.

After Krista Beaty made both free throws with 19 seconds remaining, Tarleton struggled to find a game-tying shot until Tori Skarke fired up a desperate 3-point attempt that Beaty blocked as the buzzer sounded.

UCO won the game despite a rough night from 3-point range, hitting just 1-of-16 beyond the arc. The Bronchos did make up for it at the stripe, hitting 27 free throws on 36 attempts. Brenner, who also had a game-high four blocks, was 11-of-12 from the line.

With 22 points and 11 rebounds, UCO's Lizzie Brenner recorded her ninth
"double-double" of the season, 28th of her career with the Bronchos.

Central Oklahoma Notes

It was Brenner's ninth 20-point game of the season, 30th of her career.
Brenner's 22 points was the fourth highest point total by a Broncho in
their 19-game LSC Tournament history.

UCO went just 1-for-16 (6.3%) from three-point range against the TexAnns.
The Bronchos entered the LSC Tournament ranked second in the league with
7.1 made three-pointers per contest.

This marked the second straight season that UCO opened the LSC Tournament
with a win against Tarleton State. Last season, the Bronchos downed TSU,
72-68, and advanced to the league's title game for the first time since
1992.

Tarleton State Notes

JoAnne Jones collected her seventh double-double of the season (18 pts., 10 rebs.), her fourth in-a-row, and the ninth overall on the season for Tarleton State

Tarleton is now 9-12 against Central Oklahoma all-time

Sonya Sundberg led Tarleton in scoring for the sixth time this season with 19 pts., tying her season high

Ronnie Hearne falls to 0-6 in Lone Star Conference Tournament

Central Oklahoma Quotes

Guy Hardaker, Central Oklahoma Coach

"Obviously we didn't shoot the ball very well. We knew coming into this game that Tarleton was a very good team defensively. All the games, all day long were kind of like this. The team behind was the one that ended up winning."

"Proud of the effort we gave defensively in the second half. For the most part, it was a real good effort on the team's part. I think we were spending so much energy on that end of the floor it was hurting us on getting out and running like we normally do."

"It knew going it was going to be a nail biter. It was going to be physical. I told our girls to expect to win down the stretch."

Adjustments at halftime

"We weren't communicating on the floor. Our adjustment was to do what we worked on doing to prepare for this game.

Lizzie Brenner

"I am grateful for the girls around me. Being a post you don't get to create a lot of shots for yourself. I just try to be a leader on the team."

Rose Anderson

"I think we got our first game jitters out of the way. I think Friday we will be ready to bring it."

Tarleton State Quotes

Ronnie Hearne:

"First, congrats to Central Oklahoma. They are an outstanding team, very physical, well conditioned, and well coached teams. This is one of the best teams in this region and a team that should make some noise in the NCAA tournament. I'm extremely proud of my players. For 40 minutes I felt like they played as a team played as hard as they could, but it just didn't work out."

"We focused on ways to stop #13, that was one priority. I felt like we had to win the rebound game, and we did that pretty well. They'd shot a few more free throws, that was another part we needed to win. We certainly didn't win the free throw game. In the transition game, we didn't give them a lot of easy buckets in transition." 

"Defensively, we created a lot of turnovers and got a lot of points in transition. I thought when they went to their full court press, we broke it well, but we didn't go score, and we let them get into their halfcourt defense. They played good defense the whole game."

Sonya Sundburg: 

I think part of our success over this second half of conference play, we matured as a team. We all knew that we wanted it, and we knew what we had to do. We just wanted it."

D'Anna Dingler:

"I'm very proud of our team, and we gave great effort and great heart. We lost to them earlier this season by three points and we lost again by three tonight. Coach told us to be prepared, and I thought we were, it just didn't work out."