CONWAY — The Central Arkansas Sugar Bears entered Thursday night’s game against McNeese State with a 22-game winning streak at the Farris Center, the third-longest streak in Division I women’s college basketball.

The Sugar Bears could not make it 23 in a row.

UCA (12-6, 5-2 Southland Conference) fell behind 20-4 at the start, rallied to take the lead late in the first half, but couldn’t get keep it going in a 77-61 loss to the Cowgirls in front of 2,530.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve had a team come out that lackadaisical on such a big basketball game,” said UCA Coach Sandra Rushing, whose team is in a three-way tie for second place in the Southland Conference with Lamar and Oral Roberts after Thursday’s loss.

UCA entered Thursday trailing only Baylor (49) and Kentucky (33) with their 22-game streak. But the Sugar Bears lost their first home game since March 17, 2011 when they fell to Alabama-Birmingham in the Women’s Basketball Invitational. It was UCA’s first Southland home loss since Feb. 2, 2011 against Northwestern (La.) State.

“I knew it was a tough place to play,” McNeese State Coach Brooks Donald Williams said. “We have a lot of respect for Central Arkansas and what they’ve done here. ... It’s a great rivalry. It’s really good girls’ basketball.”

UCA trailed 20-4 with 13:09 left in the first half before outscoring McNeese State 18-4 to tie the game at 26-26 with 4:12 left in the first half. Desiree Rogers - who had a career high 23 points - scored eight of the Sugar Bears’ 18 points, including two three-pointers, during the game-tying rally.

McNeese State’s Caitlyn Baggett made a go-ahead three-pointer for a 29-26 lead, but Courtney Duever gave UCA a 30-29 lead with 2:23 left in the half. After Duever made it 32-29, McNeese State scored the final five points of the half, as Jayln Johnson’s three-point play with 10 seconds left gave the Cowgirls a 34-32 halftime lead.

“We’ve had great starts and great moments in games, but we haven’t really toughed it out after the other team’s runs,” Donald Williams said. “I thought tonight after Duever took it to us, we bounced back after their run. We had some tough plays and that was the biggest difference.”

The Sugar Bears trailed 50-45 on Duever’s jumper, but that was as close as UCA would get. Ashlyn Baggett hit a three-pointer as McNeese State outscored UCA 13-4 to goup 63-49 with 8:12 remaining.

McNeese State (9-9, 4-3) shot 64 percent (16 of 25) in the second half and finished 50 percent (32 of 64) from the floor. Cecilia Okoye led the Cowgirls with 21 points. Caitlyn Baggett had 18 points and Ashlyn Baggett added 14.

UCA, which hosts Lamar on Saturday, shot 38.7 percent (24 of 62) from the floor and was 3 of 15 (20 percent) from three-point range. Senior forward Megan Herbert finished with 14 points and 12 rebounds, and Duever had 14 points and 11 rebounds.

“We were a step slow on everything,” Rushing said. “We stood and watched the ball. We didn’t get down in our defensive stance and they knew what they wanted to do.”

Southland women

THURSDAY’S GAMES

McNeese St. 77, Central Arkansas 61 Oral Roberts 77, Lamar 48 Sam Houston St. 58, SE Louisiana 53 Nicholls State 70, Texas A&M-CC 53

Southland men

THURSDAY’S GAMES

Central Ark. 103, McNeese St. 98, 3OT SE Louisiana 69, Sam Houston St. 65 Oral Roberts 91, Lamar 74 Nicholls State 69, Texas A&M-CC 62

Sports, Pages 20 on 01/25/2013