Brooks' career-high 25 points, UMHB's 20 assists, lift Cru Women's Basketball to win over UC-Santa Cruz

BELTON — Back inside the Mayborn Campus Center for the final time in non-conference play, Friday’s win for UMHB women’s basketball both began and ended with a similar pattern: a string of quick scores from junior guard Katelen Brooks.

En route to a career-best 25 points on a day in which she shot 10-of-15 from the field, Brooks highlighted The Cru’s quartet of double-digit scorers in the 73-54 win over UC-Santa Cruz.

“When Katelen has a hot hand, there’s no stopping it,” UMHB head coach Katie Novak-Lenoir said postgame.

Evidence of that came early on. Trailing UC-Santa Cruz, 8-4, in the opening quarter, it was Brooks who connected on a 3-pointer to bring UMHB within one. 65 seconds later, the Corpus Christi native again scored, this time drawing a foul on her jumper, as the three-point play put The Cru in front, 10-8. One possession later, after UCSC’s Emilie Ngo missed a shot on the other end, Brooks confidently took another 3-pointer after a pass from Jaycie Brisco. It swished through the net, pushing UMHB’s lead to five.

“She takes good shots and she can score at every level,” Novak-Lenoir noted of Brooks, who had 11 of UMHB’s first 13 points. “She’s a tough matchup. It was nice to see her get in the flow a little bit, and see our 3-point shot fall a little more. But I would say it goes to better passing that we’ve had lately.”

Look no further than The Cru’s season-high 20 assists to back that up. UMHB’s passing was on point for much of the contest, as the Crusaders picked apart UCSC’s 2-3 zone defense, finding high-percentage shots in the middle and the short corners along the baselines.

With patient, cohesive offense, The Cru turned the ball over just 10 times, tying their season-low. The 2-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio was also the highest in a game for UMHB this season, and only the third time in Novak-Lenoir’s two seasons as head coach that The Cru’s assist total doubled that of its turnover total. For a team that had only tallied more assists than turnovers in two of its 13 games prior to Friday, that improvement factored into the outcome significantly.

“We still had our lulls, but I thought we just took care of the ball better,” Novak-Lenoir said. “We had a lot less unforced turnovers than we’ve been having. So we’re shooting better because we’re taking care of the ball better.”

UMHB’s quality shot selection stemmed from that, leading to an offensive performance that saw The Cru shoot 45% or better in three of the game’s four quarters. For nearly every scoring run UCSC had, the Crusaders promptly responded, by and large avoiding the untimely droughts that held them back in recent losses to McMurry and Texas Lutheran.

Such as in the second quarter, when UMHB’s 23-14 lead was cut to a four-point margin in a 5-0 UCSC spurt. James and Brooks scored on consecutive possessions—James hitting a baseline jumper off an assist from Brooks before Brooks connected on her second 3—to push the advantage back to nine in just 31 seconds. UCSC briefly got the deficit back to six, but again UMHB answered, this time on a layup from Josie Bruder. Bruder, who tallied 15 points against UCSC, averaged 20.0 points per game over The Cru’s last contests.

“Our shot selection has kind of been all over the place this year,” Novak-Lenoir pointed out. “I want to have more games like this, where we’re building in the right direction.”

The third quarter was the only exception, a stretch that saw UMHB shoot just 4-of-16 and 1-of-6 from 3-point range. But conversely, the defense stepped up, holding the Banana Slugs to a similar 4-of-15 shooting line in the 10 minutes out of halftime.

While UCSC stayed within single digits until a 7-1 run from UMHB in the early part of the fourth quarter, the Banana Slugs never found a consistent rhythm within their half-court offense. Two of their last three second-quarter possessions ended in turnovers, including the final play of the half. UCSC’s Alexa Litchev grabbed an offensive rebound with 20.0 seconds left, but due to The Cru’s defensive pressure, the Banana Slugs dribbled around the perimeter as the clock wound down, and failed to get off a last shot. A similar scenario unfolded at the end of the third quarter, with Litchev putting up an air-ball on an off-balance jump-shot as time expired.

UCSC’s main source of scoring came at the free throw line, using its height advantage on drives to the lane and drawing fouls from Crusader defenders in the process. The Banana Slugs were 20-of-29 at the charity stripe, with 12 of those attempts coming from Lichtev, who tallied 10 of her team-high 24 points at the line. UMHB had just one player on the floor standing above 6 ‘0: Bruder, at 6’1. UCSC had four, three of whom played 23 minutes or more. Yet The Cru battled well inside on both ends of the floor, holding 6’5 Jenna Gorton and 6’2 Claire Galbo to a combined 11 points.

“I feel like our schedule this year has been rough, but we’re seeing every type of team,” Novak-Lenoir said, referencing the matchup challenges with UCSC’s height in the post. “I think that’s only going to prepare us to keep going. And then we turn around and face Concordia [on Monday]. They’re totally different from the team we faced today. If that doesn’t make us adaptable, I don’t know what will.”

Brooks’ second big surge came late in the fourth, a quarter that saw UMHB outscore UCSC, 27-17. A 10-2 run, sparked by James’ offensive rebound and layup with 3:21 left, sealed the win, with Brooks contributing five of those 10 points. On one possession, she caught a pass from Rachel Okoye on the left wing, dribbled behind her back, drove to the left side of the lane, then stopped and spun to her right, drawing a foul as her layup hung on the rim and fell through the net.

The bench jumped to its feet as she scored, and the free throw that followed made it 69-51. She pushed the lead to 20 on a layup 39 seconds later, and fittingly, added one more jump-shot on The Cru’s very next possession, giving UMHB a 25-point scorer for the second-straight game. Brooks’ late scores capped a strong finish for Novak-Lenoir’s squad, who went 11-of-17 from the field and converted on a trio of 3-pointers in the final 10 minutes. It marked UMHB’s highest-scoring fourth quarter of the season, as The Cru notched its 10th win.

UMHB now looks ahead to Monday’s 5:30 p.m. matchup in Austin, facing Concordia (TX) for the first time since the Tornados joined the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference. The Crusaders are 33-9 against Concordia in the last two decades. Concordia is 4-3 overall, and enters on a three-game win streak.