Box Score
BROWNWOOD – Meia Daniels and the No. 2 Howard Payne Lady Yellow Jackets took over in the late minutes to advance to the NCAA Division III Sweet 16 with a 79-64 win over McMurry at Brownwood Coliseum Saturday night. Daniels, the senior all-American scored 27 points and had nine of HPU's last 15 points in the final 4:53.
McMurry's Allison Nelson hit two free throws with 4:53 remaining to cut the HPU lead to six points at 64-58. McMurry had trailed 59-43 with 10:55 remaining before McMurry made a solid attempt at a comeback by out-scoring the Lady Yellow Jackets 15-5 through Nelson's free-throws.
However Kim Hoffman knocked down three free throws, Katy Sarem knocked down a 3-pinter and then Daniels made three consecutive 3-pointers to close the game. During HPU's 15-6 run to close the game, McMurry managed just a jumper from Amber Horton and four points from Tarra Richardson.
The story of the night came at the free-throw line. Howard Payne reached the charity stripe 45 times and converted on 34 of those attempts while McMurry only made 19 trips to the line. McMurry did hit 14 of those 19 free throws but shot just 37 percent from the floor for the contest.
The first half started ugly for McMurry as well. McMurry trailed 24-9 with 8:47 remaining and then got itself back to respectability by closing the half on a 18-12 run and trailed 36-27 at intermission. It was the all-Americans dominating the first half for both sides. HPU's Daniels had 13 points and was 8 for 8 from the free-throw line and McMurry's Richardson had 14 points in the first period.
Richardson finished her last game in an extraordinary career with a 24-point, 9-rebound, 4-block performance. The multi time all-America selection finished her career with 2,194 points, 1,015 rebounds, 304 blocks and 206 steals. She is McMurry's all-time leader in the former three categories, the American Southwest Conference's all-time leader in the former two categories and finished second all-time on McMurry's career list for steals. She trailed only Ogonna Merritt who had 414 steals in her career.
Maigen Sawyer finished with 14 points and finished her career as the ninth all-time leading scorer in McMurry's history with 1,031 points. She also finished with 179 career 3-point field goals made, which was No. 1 on McMurry's all-time list.
Amber Horton finished with 10 points, six assists and three steals. Dominique Brown had a game-high seven steals and added five assists to go with two points.
HPU's Kim Hoffman was one of the heroes at the free-throw line. She hit 14 of 17 attempts and finished with 20 points on the night. Daniels was 6 of 14 from the floor, 4 of 8 from 3-point land, and 11 of 12 from the charity stripe. Hope Hohertz added 11 points for HPU.
For Howard Payne it will mark the second-straight season that the Lady Yellow Jackets have advanced to the NCAA Sweet 16. Last season, they entered the Sweet 16 with a 28-1 record; this season HPU enters with a flawless 29-0 record.
HPU completed its sixth-straight win over McMurry. McMurry was the last team from the ASC to defeat Howard Payne on Jan. 27, 2007 at Kimbrell Arena. Since then, HPU has strung together 34-straight wins over ASC opponents through regular season, conference tournament and NCAA Tournament play.
McMurry finishes with the second best record in school history at 25-5. The 25 wins are second to the 2005-06 team's 26 wins. However, this season under head coach Veronica Snow the team was able to win its first NCAA Tournament game since 2000 with a 71-67 win against Trinity Wednesday night.
Along with Sawyer and Richardson, Erica Peters and Allison Nelson finished their final games in McMurry uniforms. Both are juniors but will graduate early and won't complete their final season of eligibility. Peters scored 146 points in her career while Nelson had 655 career points.
Snow in her first season had the quickest start of any head coach in McMurry's history. The next best was Sam Nichols' 9-15 start in his first season back in the 1995-96 season.
The loss leaves Howard Payne as the last Texas team in the NCAA Division III women's basketball tournament.
