BELTON — Facing the tallest frontcourt in the ASC for the second time this season on Saturday afternoon, UMHB walked into the Mayborn Campus Center knowing it would need both a collective edge and an individual catalyst to get the job done against ETBU.
The aggression was there from the beginning—UMHB (7-16, 1-3 ASC) eager to shake off a last second road loss at Howard Payne seven days before—and in the second half, the catalyst emerged as well, in the rebounding and defense of sophomore Karlee Cronk.
Cronk’s 13 second-half rebounds and UMHB’s team-wide defensive intensity paid dividends in front of a vocal home crowd, as The Cru earned its way back into the win column with an emphatic 56-49 victory.
It marked UMHB’s first conference win of the season, along with The Cru’s first defeat of the ASC’s defending champion in the last six meetings between the two. ETBU (15-6, 1-2 ASC) won this year’s first duel, 76-43, on Jan. 17, but Saturday’s rematch had a very different feel.
Rather than being out-rebounded by 7, UMHB won the battle on the boards by 9, 41-32. Instead of grabbing only nine offensive rebounds and giving up 11, The Cru pulled down 17 offensive boards—including five from Cronk—and surrendered only five. And rather than being the victim of ETBU’s fifth highest scoring game of the season, UMHB’s defensive focus held the Tigers in check all afternoon, limiting the visitors from Marshall to fewer than 50 points for only the second time in 2025-26.
“We changed the way we structured practice, breaking it down into quarters because we were struggling with game flow and putting good quarters together,” UMHB head coach Katie Novak-Lenoir said of the lead-up to Saturday’s win. “So we were trying as a staff to do something different this week. The beginning of the week was really hard. At the end of the week, we changed some things that we wanted to try differently, and they executed.”
Few Division III teams roll out a starting lineup featuring three players that stand above 6-foot, and even fewer are able to bring another 6-foot-1 forward off the bench. But ETBU is one of the rare exceptions, led by an imposing frontcourt that came into Saturday having out-rebounded six of its last eight opponents by five or more.
It was a point of advantage against UMHB’s smaller lineup, particularly in the low post, where ETBU’s Macey Jones, a 6-foot-4 forward averaging 11.8 points per game, was matched up with UMHB’s Kyley Atkinson, who stands at 6-foot-0. But the Crusaders held their ground, relying on aggression and consistent effort to neutralize the impact of ETBU’s posts, even without 5-foot-11 forward Kayla Johns-McGarity—averaging 7.3 rebounds per game over her last four contests—on the floor.
“It doesn’t matter size-wise,” Cronk, who had 11 rebounds in the fourth quarter, said postgame. “We all still have to play our game, do our job, get our rebounds, and make a difference on the court when you get your chances.”
Cronk certainly made a difference down the stretch. In the final 28 seconds, the Lubbock native grabbed three key rebounds, running her rebounding total to double digits for the second time this season.
With UMHB holding to a 53-49 lead and the clock under 30 seconds, Natalia Galvan missed a baseline jumper for The Cru, creating one of the game’s most decisive 50/50 balls—a rebound opportunity that could go either way. Cronk instinctively put herself in the right spot to secure the offensive board, keeping possession with UMHB, then drew a foul from ETBU’s Marley Keith as she looked to pass the ball back out to the perimeter. Cronk went to the foul line and calmly drained both free throws, stretching the advantage to six.
ETBU got up two 3-point attempts in the final 20 seconds but both were off the mark. Cronk made sure there were no second-chances for the Tigers, as she grabbed the defensive rebound on each miss, securing possession for The Cru despite multiple ETBU players around her trying to get a hand on the ball.
“Whether she’s starting, coming off the bench, playing 40 minutes, or playing 10 minutes, we know we’re going to get 100 percent effort from her,” Novak-Lenoir said of Cronk. “Just the way she rebounded today was huge, against much bigger opponents. I’m proud of that rebounding effort.”
That late-game sequence was a mircocosm of the second half, with Cronk as its central figure. UMHB kept ETBU off the offensive glass all game, holding the Tigers to a season-low five offensive boards and just two second-chance points. Meanwhile, Cronk’s two free throws after her own offensive rebound increased UMHB’s second-chance point total to 17, with The Cru both creating and capitalizing on extended possessions.
The aggressiveness on the offensive glass showed itself a number of times as the hosts pulled ahead in the fourth quarter, but especially one possession at the under-six minute mark. After forcing a missed jumper from Tiffany Bickford, a defensive rebound from Cronk triggered UMHB’s longest possession of the second half with The Cru in front, 48-44.
Galvan missed a shot with 5:59, but freshman Marissa Hernandez tracked down an offensive rebound, and another narrow miss from Galvan—who had a team-high 19 points—was knocked out of bounds by the Tigers, keeping the ball with UMHB. Rachel Okoye stepped up with the next offensive rebound of the same possession 23 seconds later, grabbing Bruder’s missed midrange shot before dishing it right back to the 6-foot-1 senior forward, who drilled a 3-pointer from the right corner.
55 seconds elapsed between Cronk’s initial defensive board and Bruder’s 3, wearing down ETBU’s defense while the lead stretched to 51-44.
“Getting a longer time on offense allows us to keep getting in the flow,” said Cronk, who tallied her first collegiate double-double with 11 points in addition to her rebounds. “It makes them have to work a little more. It makes it easier for us to click as a team, then go turn around and make their offensive possession way shorter than ours was.”
Despite scoring 34 of their 49 points in the paint and shooting 42.6% as a team, ETBU’s offense never seemed to fully click, held to too many possessions of only one shot. The Tigers closed with a scoring drought that lasted the final 2:26, and made just one of their last six shots, both of which were a credit to the defensive effort displayed by The Cru. Jones was on the bench for ETBU for the final 3:42, having fouled out after a challenging 2-of-5 shooting day with a team-high six turnovers.
“I think we locked in a little bit,” Novak-Lenoir said of stepping up defensively in the fourth. “Honestly, I think we have the conditioning in the legs to sustain that. I thought they were tiring out a little bit, and I thought we stayed solid.”
ETBU’s seven-point fourth quarter was the Tigers’ first single-digit quarter since Dec. 29, 2025, when UW-Eau Claire held them to eight in the second quarter of a 75-69 loss. UMHB trailed, 17-13, through the opening 10-minute period, and 29-24 at halftime. But The Cru largely kept pace in the first half with the heavily-favored Tigers, who came into the matchup ranked No. 71 in the NCAA Power Index.
ETBU’s largest lead in the opening 20 minutes came with 35 seconds until the intermission, when Sara Cowan drained a free throw for an eight-point advantage. But UMHB came back down the floor and answered by pulling the momentum back, getting Galvan open for a 3-pointer that pulled The Cru within five at the break. Galvan, a freshman guard, hit five 3s for the first time in her college career, going 5-of-7 from beyond the arc as The Cru’s lone scorer in double figures.
The positive momentum carried into the third quarter, the same 10-minute stretch that had sunk UMHB in its 33-point road loss in Marshall, when ETBU went on a 23-9 run out of halftime. Instead, it was the Crusaders who exerted their will in the third, taking the lead, 41-40, on Katelen Brooks’ right wing 3 with 3:14 left in the period. UMHB outscored ETBU by six in that stretch, and took a 43-42 lead into the fourth.
While The Cru had its moments of offensive success in the final 10 minutes—Bruder’s 3 with 5:16 left stands out—it was all defense and rebounding the rest of the way. UMHB made up for shooting 4-of-19 by holding ETBU to a 3-of-13 mark and four turnovers. The Tigers missed six straight 3-point attempts, finishing the day 3-of-17 from long range. UMHB was 8-of-27, making eight 3s in a game for the first time since Dec. 30.
“Yeah, you could feel it,” Cronk said of the shift in momentum during the second half. “We started playing as one, and got our chances to get back at them for how we played the first time. I’m glad we finished it how we needed to.”
The uniqueness of the ASC schedule means UMHB won’t play again until Feb. 17, when The Cru hits the road for the final time in the regular season to face Hardin-Simmons. The Cowgirls, despite falling on a buzzer-beater at Howard Payne on Saturday, remain in first place in the ASC, sitting at 3-1, and 17-4 overall.
“I think for us right now physically, with just some injuries we have going on, it’s a good thing [to have the extended break between games],” Novak-Lenoir said. “We’re going to get some rest we need and get in the gym.”
