BROWNWOOD, Texas- With 7:29 remaining in the second quarter, the UMHB women’s basketball team found itself trailing Howard Payne by four, 29-25, inside the spacious Brownwood Coliseum.
The American Southwest Conference duel had plenty of importance for The Cru, especially considering it marked UMHB’s final conference matchup of December. But in the opening quarter, the Crusaders’ 3-0 mark in league play was put to the test, as HPU torched the nets, converting on 10 of its 15 shots.
Faced with a four-point deficit less than three minutes into the second, UMHB answered with a statement. A 19-6 scoring run closed the quarter for the visitors from Belton, as they took a 44-35 lead into the half. They never looked back, only extending their lead as the final two quarters unfolded, and emerged with a 83-59 victory on Thursday night.
UMHB improved to 8-1 overall, having won its last eight contests, three of which have been on the road. HPU dropped its third straight game in league play, falling below .500 with a 4-5 overall record and a 1-4 ASC mark.
UMHB head coach Katie Novak-Lenoir said postgame that the difference in the way her team opened the first half, as opposed to the way the Crusaders closed the first half, stemmed from the intensity on the defensive end.
“I think the difference was that we woke up and realized our defense needed to get us going and get us going quickly,” Novak-Lenoir noted. “Getting in our zone helped us get some hustle plays [that] we needed and sped up the game a little, which is what we want to do.”
What helped was the fact that the third quarter ended up being more or less a continuation of UMHB’s success in the second. The Crusaders stepped up on the defensive end, and offensively, were nearly unstoppable. They put 26 points on the board in that 10-minute span, starting with a short-range jumper from Kaitlyn Kollmorgen and ending with Meagan Johnson’s buzzer-beating hook shot. UMHB led 70-46 by that point, heading into the fourth quarter.
“It took us a few minutes to get going,” Novak-Lenoir added. “But we finally started putting some pressure on the ball and getting aggressive on the boards.”
Turnovers and offensive rebounds heavily favored UMHB throughout the victory, as the Crusaders took full advantage of both, along with a fast pace in transition. UMHB had 22 offensive rebounds to HPU’s six, and turned the ball over just 13 times while forcing 26 turnovers. It slowly wore the Yellow Jackets down, perhaps no better displayed than in a possession midway through the fourth quarter.
With The Cru in front by a sizable 21-point margin, Lauren Baker rebounded a missed HPU 3-pointer and Jaycie Brisco fired up a 3-pointer for UMHB just seven seconds later. It missed, but Kollmorgen tracked down the offensive rebound. Four more missed shots followed, but each of those misses was immediately followed by an offensive board for UMHB. Each time the ball ricocheted off the rim, another Crusader regained possession, a testament to UMHB’s intensity and quickness on both ends of the floor. The final offensive rebound of that near minute-long possession saw Ashley Faux rebound her own miss and drive to the rim for an uncontested layup, giving UMHB a 79-56 lead with 3:20 left.
Arieona Rosborough had a stellar offensive day for UMHB, helping ignite the second-quarter run as she tallied a career-high 28 points. Rosborough was 11-of-24 from the field, and added seven rebounds, five of which came on the offensive end.
Kollmorgen had 14 points and 10 rebounds for her second double-double of the year, shooting 6-of-15. Johnson scored 10 points in what marked a career-high performance for the senior and added 10 rebounds for the first double-double of her collegiate career.
“I’m proud of Arieona for giving us a great defensive spark that we needed,” Novak-Lenoir said. “And Meagan and Kaitlyn were huge on the boards for us.”
UMHB now looks ahead to Saturday’s 1 p.m. road duel against Sul Ross State. It marks a sort of homecoming for Novak-Lenoir, who was head coach at SRSU from 2017-2022. The Lobos are off to a 3-6 start overall in this 2023-24 season.
