BELTON — Lindsay Eaton picked up her second foul Saturday midway through the first half and emphatically untucked her jersey in frustration before heading to the bench.
The Mary Hardin-Baylor junior re-entered in the final minutes, only to quickly pick up her third foul and head back to the bench.
Eaton picked up a fourth foul, but it wasn’t until eight minutes into the second half. By then, the junior had 20 points, including 13 in those eight minutes. The Crusaders, behind Eaton’s game-high 27 points, erased an early seven-point deficit and went on for the 82-70 win over Hardin-Simmons University at the Mayborn Campus Center.
UMHB’s win — the 13th in a row for the Crusaders — clinches a berth in the American Southwest Conference postseason tournament. The Crusaders have qualified for the tournament all five years under head coach Kim Kirkpatrick-Thornton, but did so as the West Division’s fourth seed the last four seasons.
The Crusaders (17-4, 14-3) currently sit atop the West Division, a game ahead of Howard Payne University (17-4, 13-4).
“They’re playing at a new level,” said Kirkpatrick-Thornton, whose Crusaders were 4-4 heading into the Trinity University Holiday Tournament. “I keep saying it but it’s a new level of confidence, new intensity and just with a lot of composure.”
Said Eaton: “It’s nice to make the tournament but that’s not our main goal. We want first place. We want to win conference.”
Hardin Simmons jumped out early, taking a quick 9-2 lead with 15:58 left in the first half following three Bo Warm free throws. UMHB needed just two minutes however, to erase the deficit. The Crusaders went on an 11-4 run, taking the lead at 12-11 and making it 16-13 after a Kallie White 3-pointer with 12:05 left in the half.
The Cowgirls took a brief 31-28 lead in the final minute, but back-to-back 3-pointers from White and Stacie Stephens put UMHB back up and carried the Crusaders’ newfound momentum into the second half.
“I was proud that we didn’t lose our composure,” Kirkpatrick-Thornton said. “That we just kept adjusting and kept working and chipped away and got back in the game. We were able to go into halftime ahead, which was huge.”
In the second half, Eaton took over.
Eaton scored the Crusaders’ first eight points of the second half, then converted a three-point play with just under 13 minutes to play, putting UMHB up 51-42. She then hit a jumper for the double-digit lead before picking up her fourth foul on the Cowgirls’ ensuing possession.
“Watching the game for the last couple of minutes (in the first half) really made me mad because I wanted to be out there,” Eaton said. “We got a good halftime talk and we all really got pumped up. We knew we had to start out and put it to them in the first couple of minutes or they were going to come back on us.”
Contact Angel Verdejo at averdejo@kdhnews.com or (254) 501-7564. Follow him on Twitter at KDHsports.
