UMHB shot a season-best 43.4 percent from the field and played stingy defense for long stretches as the Lady Crusaders put away the Austin College Kangaroos 63-52 Monday afternoon at Mayborn Campus Center.
The victory was the second straight for UMHB (4-4), which is 2-2 in the ASC heading into conference games at home against LeTourneau on Thursday and East Texas Baptist on Saturday.
“Getting two wins now is huge for us,” Lady Crusaders coach Kim Kirkpatrick said. “It helps build some confidence.”
Austin College (1-8) had the hot hand early, hitting four 3-pointers in the first seven minutes.
Landie Thompson kept UMHB in it during the opening minutes. The 6-foot freshman forward out of Austin Lake Travis scored the Lady Crusaders’ first eight points and finished with team highs of 14 points and six rebounds.
“We were able to work the ball inside early, and that happened to be what was working,” Thompson said. “I’m a lot more confident now, and I think our team is a lot more confident now than we were a couple of weeks ago.”
Added Kirkpatrick: “Landie has progressed tremendously. She’s still learning what she can and can’t do when teams collapse on her, but she has really progressed and will continue to get better.”
The Kangaroos were up by as many as five points before the Lady Crusaders clamped down. An inside bucket by bulky post Katy Williams, who had a game-high 17 points, gave Austin College its final lead at 25-23 with 7:20 left before intermission.
Stacie Stephens and Blair Heitmiller hit 3s to ignite a 10-2 run and UMHB never looked back.
The Lady Crusaders limited the Kangaroos to three points during a 10-minute stretch that spanned halftime and led 44-30 after Jessica Brogan’s 3 at the 16:30 mark of the second half.
“We had been playing pretty well defensively,” Kirkpatrick said. “We talked at halftime about keeping up the same intensity and pressure.”
Austin College crept to within 46-39 with 11:03 left before UMHB shackled the Kangaroos again, yielding just one point over the next five minutes to build a 16-point cushion. The deficit was never under double digits the rest of the way.
The 43-percent shooting and tightfisted defense helped offset 27 turnovers by the Lady Crusaders, who got eight points from Janel Daniels and seven each from Heitmiller and Stephens.
Amber Stafford added 11 points for the Kangaroos, who were outrebounded 49-31.
Notes: The win kept the Lady Crusaders undefeated at home this season at 3-0. . . . Following the women’s games Thursday and Saturday, the UMHB men will face LeTourneau and ETBU, respectively. The ninth-ranked Crusaders (7-1, 4-0 ASC) were unbeaten at home during the 2007 calendar year and have won 15 straight at Mayborn Campus Center.
