By Nick Eatman

With double-figure scoring from all five starters, West Texas A&M is going back to a familiar spot - the LSC Championship game.

      The Lady Buffs cruised past Central Oklahoma for an 83-70 semifinal win, marking the third straight time West Texas has eliminated UCO from the championship.

      WTAMU improves to 28-3 and will face Northeastern State in Sunday's championship game at Bruin Fieldhouse.     

      Jamie Simmons led the way for the Lady Buffs with 19 points and 11 rebounds. Holly Isaacs scored 14 points and Megan McLain, Ceciley Johnson and Joni Unruh all had 12 points. Unruh, the LSC South Player of the Year and sporting a black eye sustained in Thursday's quarterfinal win over Southeastern Oklahoma, had a game-high six steals.

      While West Texas A&M has been a thorn to UCO's side in recent history, the Bronchos quite possibly struggled with fatigue, having used so much energy to win a triple-overtime thriller against Abilene Christian Thursday night.

      Still, Ashley Beckley scored 23 points and Brianne Grisham had 15 off five 3-pointers, marking the second consecutive game to hit a handful of 3's. Rose Anderson scored eight points, had 10 rebounds and five steals.

      UCO drops to 22-7 but will likely get a berth in next week's regional tournament, which very well could be at West Texas A&M's campus in Canyon, Texas, once again. 

       The Lady Buffs never trailed in the game as UCO struggled early, scoring its first points four minutes into the contest. West Texas A&M took a 10-point halftime lead and led by as much as 20 with 7:11 to play in the game.

      UCO got the lead down to 12 after Grisham's fifth 3-pointer, but never got any closer. 

      West Texas will look to beat Northeastern State for a second time this year after winning in Tahlequah, 62-55 back on Jan. 7. The Lady Buffs are a perfect 8-0 in tournament games in Bartlesville. 

WTAMU Quotes

Krista Gerlich

Opening Statements...

"We're super excited to be playing in the conference championship.  We're really proud of these girls.  We knew it would be tough against Central Oklahoma, it always is and we've got quite a rivalry with them.  It was very different playing them in the semis, it was just a different feel, very championship-like, obviously.  I think that Guy [Hardaker] does a great job and always has his team ready.  They were a little bit short-handed with the post player that was out.  I thought that our girls handled their pressure and handled their different defenses that they played.  I thought that we attacked the rim extremely well and I thought that we guarded extremely well."

Cecily Johnson

Post Play...

"We knew that we had to get the ball into the post and we kind of tried to get it where the defense wasn't.  I kind of just fell into place for us really."

Holly Isaacs

Playing in Bartlesville...

 "We just call it our second home.  We love playing here and we love having the conference tournament here.  What we've been telling the new kids is it's just magical.  Every time we come here we are just excited and ready to go.  We treat it like our home court."

WEST TEXAS A&M WOMEN'S NOTES

* With its 83-70 win Saturday over Central Oklahoma, West Texas A&M earned a spot in its 16th Lone Star Conference Post-Season Tournament championship game.  The Lady Buffs are 10-5 in their previous 15 title game appearances, and have won the last two league championships and three of the last four.

* West Texas A&M will be appearing in its fifth straight LSC Post-Season Tournament championship game, which is two short of tying the LSC record of seven straight title-game appearances set by Abilene Christian (1993-99).

* With a win Sunday against Northeastern State, West Texas A&M would become the only school in LSC women's basketball history to win at least three straight league titles on two separate occasions.  West Texas A&M won five straight league titles from 1987-91 and is on the verge of a third straight league title.  On three other occasions in league history, a team won back-to-back titles before falling short of a third title.  ACU won back-to-back titles in 1985 and 1986 before losing to West Texas A&M in the 1987 title game.  ACU won back-to-back titles again in 1998 and 1999 before losing to Southeastern Oklahoma State in the 2000 quarterfinals.  And Angelo State won back-to-back crowns in 2004 and 2005 before losing to West Texas A&M in the 2006 title game.

* West Texas A&M has appeared in the second-most tournaments in LSC history (22; trailing only the 23 appearances by ACU), but has played in more games (48) and posted more wins (37) than any other school in LSC history.

* With Saturday's 83-70 win over the Bronchos, West Texas A&M is 5-0 all-time against Central Oklahoma in the LSC Post-Season Tournament:
> 2002-03 -- West Texas A&M 78, Central Oklahoma 64 (qf)
> 2006-07 -- West Texas A&M 67, Central Oklahoma 56 (sf)
> 2007-08 -- West Texas A&M 85, Central Oklahoma 73 (f)
> 2008-09 -- West Texas A&M 66, Central Oklahoma 59 (f)
> 2009-10 -- West Texas A&M 83, Central Oklahoma 70 (sf)

* West Texas A&M's win was its 28th of the season against just three losses, marking the ninth time in the program's illustrious history that the Lady Buffs have won at least 28 games in a season.  The Lady Buffs are 56-9 combined in the last two seasons.

* West Texas A&M's 13-point margin of victory in the semifinal contest was its 22nd double-digit victory of the season.

CENTRAL OKLAHOMA QUOTES

UCO head coach Guy Hardaker

We didn't play particularly well today.  West Texas defense was just really, really good early. We had to run some stuff we haven't just to get some good looks. We played a little hurry up at the end to get back into the game.  It's very hard to do that. We talked about that before the game. We didn't want to get into a hole.
When you get so far behind its almost impossible to catch up.

I'm really proud of my girls. They have worked very hard from those early miles. Right now they are not very happy. We didn't quit playing. Hats off to West Texas, they were the better team tonight.

ASHLEY BECKELY

Team as good as West Texas you can't dig a hole. I didn't shoot free throws very well and that hurts you. We didn't execute very well. West Texas played their hearts out and all the credit goes to them.
It was a very physical game, but that's the way I like it.  Like I said with West Texas you can't give them the lead. It's hard to crawl back. We didn't give up any excuses.

BRIANNE GRISHAM
We had enough time to rest. We just didn't play our game.

CENTRAL OKLAHOMA NOTES

- The Bronchos have reached the semifinals in each of the last four years, losing to WTAM in each trip to the postgame tournament.

- After scoring an average of 102.7 points per game over the last three contests, UCO was held to just 70 points on Saturday.

- Ashley Beckley has turned in two of the top five single-game scoring totals for UCO in all-time tournament history.  She combined for a total of 51 points in the two games.

- Jordan Stark led the Bronchos in rebounding on Saturday to increase her total of either leading or sharing the lead in rebounding to 13 games this season.

- Beckley has either led or tied for the team lead in scoring 14 times this season.