File photo from the Jan. 29 matchup between UMHB and Hardin-Simmons by Luke Zayas/Backwards Hat Media
ABILENE — The UMHB women’s basketball team gave first-place Hardin-Simmons all it could handle inside the Mabee Complex on Tuesday night, cutting the deficit to three with 2:03 to go in a tight American Southwest showdown.
But the Cowgirls went 6-of-6 at the free throw line in the final 19 seconds, and along with a Savannah Bennett layup, maintained their separation down the stretch, en route to a 65-59 win.
HSU (19-5, 4-1 ASC), who secured the top seed in the 2026 ASC Tournament with Tuesday’s home win, tallied 19 offensive rebounds in the win and broke a 40-40 tie with three straight 3s late in the third quarter, going ahead for good over the game’s final 12 minutes.
UMHB (7-17, 1-4 ASC) did its best to answer that 9-0 run—which was capped by Dylan Koele’s bank-shot 3 at the third-quarter buzzer—and gained some ground on the Cowgirls’ lead in the fourth quarter. But in similar fashion to the first meeting of the season between the two, recapturing the lead proved elusive. The Cru cut the deficit down to four or less on four different occasions over the last 10 minutes, only for HSU to answer each time.
Kayla Johns-McGarity, who returned to the rotation after missing the ETBU win, pulled UMHB within three, 49-46, at the 8:41 mark. Solid defense from both sides followed over the next two minutes before HSU’s Jacqueline Berry pushed HSU’s lead out to five on one of her 10 layups in the contest. She followed without another on HSU’s very next possession, and freshman Avery Cathey sank a 3 less than a minute later. A three-point deficit for UMHB became a 10-point HSU lead in just two minutes.
But the visitors from Belton kept battling, as Rachel Okoye added to her high-scoring night with back-to-back layups in a 70-second span, trimming the HSU advantage to 57-54. Back in a one-possession game, the Cowgirls found another spark, as Berry pushed the ball upcourt quickly and found Bennett underneath the basket. Bennett, a 6-foot-1 junior, eluded two Crusader defenders and scored off the glass. It was a two-possession game from that point on, with Caroline Croft hitting four straight free throws sandwiched between a corner 3 from UMHB’s Josie Bruder.
“We played hard, and played better than the first time we played them,” UMHB head coach Katie Novak-Lenoir said postgame. “But we let them get too many easy looks and offensive rebounds, which ultimately cost us the game. Getting better in practice and building towards Saturday is our focus now.”
Berry had three assists for HSU to go along with her team-high 20 points. All 10 of her made field goals came in the paint, as she attacked the rim and contributed heavily to the Cowgirls’ 38 paint points. For UMHB, Okoye had a 20-point game of her own, her fourth such performance of the season. The Cru’s senior point guard played 31 minutes and scored on UMHB’s final possession, driving along the baseline for a layup with six seconds left.
Okoye began adding to her scoring tally early, but not before Katelen Brooks got the momentum rolling from beyond the arc. Brooks hit 3s at the 8:09 and 5:36 marks, with her second tying the game at 10-10. Just over a minute later, Amillion Fowler connected from long-range as well, burying a 3 for a 13-12 lead. UMHB opened by making three of its first four 3-point attempts while HSU missed its first seven, building out a 19-16 lead by the end of the first quarter.
Not much changed in the second quarter, as the ASC rivals went into halftime tied at 28-28. UMHB out-rebounded HSU, 26-23, in the opening half, but seven turnovers—and the Cowgirls’ eight points off those turnovers—helped fuel the hosts’ momentum. HSU went up 28-23 with 2:03 left in the quarter, but fell into a cold shooting stretch to close the quarter, opening the door for UMHB’s 5-0 run. Freshman guard Marissa Hernandez knocked down her fourth 3 of the season, and on UMHB’s final possession, Johns-McGarity gained inside position on HSU’s MaeSyn Gay for an offensive rebound, scoring on a game-tying putback just before the buzzer.
The third quarter proved decisive, just as it was in HSU’s 69-56 win in Belton on Jan. 29. In that game, the Cowgirls opened the second half on an 18-9 run, and three weeks later, it was a 21-12 spurt that flipped the game for HSU.
UMHB found second half success on the offensive end first, claiming a 34-30 lead on Natalia Galvan’s layup with 7:07 left, before taking a five-point advantage on another score from the Hearne, Texas native at the 3:48 mark. But Berry immediately countered with a driving layup of her own, and with 2:34 to go, took back the lead for the hosts. A Johns-McGarity free throw briefly knotted the score at 40 apiece, but HSU then rolled on with its 3-point barrage, as Caroline Croft swished a pair of 22-foot shots before Koele added one of her own, sending HSU into the fourth quarter up 49-40.
The Cru now turns its attention to its regular season finale on Saturday in Belton, hosting a Howard Payne squad that narrowly won the season’s first meeting, 60-59, in Brownwood. HPU is 3-2 in ASC play and sitting in second place in the league coming off Saturday’s 60-55 win over ETBU. Tip-off is set for 1 p.m. CT at the Mayborn Campus Center, where UMHB will also honor its five seniors in the final home game of 2025-26.
UMHB Stat Leaders
Points: Rachel Okoye (20), Natalia Galvan (11), Kayla Johns-McGarity (9)
Rebounds: Kayla Johns-McGarity (13), Karlee Cronk (8)
Assists: Rachel Okoye (3), Karlee Cronk (3)
