ABILENE, Texas - Nolan Richardson extended his streak of 20-point performances to seven-straight Saturday afternoon at Kimbrell Arena.

But, more importantly, the senior guard gave Midwestern State a lift when it needed it the most to help the Mustangs to an 88-66 rout of Abilene Christian.

Midwestern, which improved to 19-6, kept pace with Angelo State in the battle for first place in the Lone Star Conference South Division at 8-2. The Mustangs and Rams are now a half-game up on on Texas A&M-Kingsville, which fell to West Texas A&M 64-55 Saturday night in Canyon.

Midwestern  not only clinches a berth in the Lone Star Conference Championships to be held in two weeks in Bartlesville, Okla., but the Mustangs will be no lower than a No. 3 seed and can clinch at least a No. seed with a win at Angelo State Wednesday night. The Mustangs can claim an outright division championship with two wins next week as MSU closes the regular season against Texas A&M-Kingsville Saturday night at D.L. Ligon Coliseum.

Richardson, who poured in a game-high 26 points, hit three-straight 3-pointers as part of an 18-2 run early in the second half as the Mustangs turned a slim 40-37 halftime lead into a commanding 62-43 advantage after Trajinski Grigsby converted a feed from Earl Rabb into a layup with 12:52 to go.

The Mustangs also clamped down on the defensive end after intermission and limited the Wildcats to 21.1 shooting percentage in the second half.

ACU, which shot 51.7 percent in the first half, led by as many as 10 points in the opening half after Dante Adams hit a 3-pointer just under nine minutes into the first half.

But the Mustangs chipped away and tied the game at 31-31 on an Anthony Moore trey six minutes later and took the lead for good when Moore converted a fast-break layup with two minutes to go in the first half.

Richardson became the first Midwestern player to score at least 20 points in seven-straight games since former NAIA All-American Tony Forch accomplished the feat in 1979-80.

Sophomore forward Charlie Logan also finished with a career-high 19 points and hit on nine of his 10 field goal attempts, while Craig Green hit a pair of 3-pointers to finish with 10 points.

Senior guard Earl Rabb contributed a great all-around performance as scored seven points, pulled down seven rebounds and had four steals to go along with a career-high 14 assists.

Moore posted nine points, seven rebounds, six assists and three steals in 25 minutes off of the bench.

Abilene Christian was paced by Adams, who hit four treys on his way to 22 points.

The Wildcats fell to 8-16 and 2-8.