ALVA, Okla. –  Senior forward Chanel Miller recorded her second straight 20-point performance to lead the Southern Arkansas Lady Mulerider basketball team, who shot over 49% from the floor, to their third consecutive victory with a 65-56 road win over Northwestern Oklahoma State on Thursday night inside Percefull Fieldhouse.
 
The win improves the Lady Muleriders to 8-16 overall, 6-12 in GAC play and moves them up a spot in the conference standings to ninth, with two games remaining.
 
Southern Arkansas carried a 16-point lead into halftime on 53.3% shooting from the field (16-of-30). The Lady Muleriders also forced 14 turnovers, including a pair of steals by Brianna Sifford and Cemetra Jenkins.
 
Through the first ten minutes of action, SAU opened up the scoring on a 23-6 run before pushing their first half lead to the largest of the game at 36-14 with 1:40 remaining before intermission. Seven Lady Muleriders scored a bucket in the first half, led by Miller's 12.
 
SAU continued to dominate from the field in the second half as Miller quickly scored inside followed by a three-pointer from Ashley Riggles at the 18:18 mark of the final half. Just under four minutes later, Riggles again connected from behind the arc to push SAU's lead back to 18.
 
After a jumper by Miller with just under 14 minutes to play, Tierra Tucker produced two paint buckets in under 25 seconds on consecutive trips down the floor to push SAU's lead to 21, 52-31.
 
A 12-0 Lady Ranger run was halted by a Shunta Nevitt three-pointer that gave the Lady Muleriders a 12-point lead with 7:25 to play.
 
Northwestern Oklahoma would get as close as six points down the stretch, but a pair of free throws from Rosa Bryant and Miller padded the SAU led with under a minute and half to play as the Lady Muleriders picked up a pivotal GAC win.
 
Miller's 20 came on 8-of-14 shooting in a team-high 28 minutes of work. Bryant added 12 points and a game-high eight rebounds, while Riggles scored nine points on 3-of-4 shooting from deep.


Southern Arkansas will put their three-game winning streak on the line and continue to fight for a trip to Bartlesville as the welcome Arkansas-Monticello into the W.T. Watson Athletic Center for a February 26^th matchup. Tip-off for the home-finale is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. with a senior night ceremony taking place before the 7:30 p.m. start of the men's game.