Box Score

SEARCY — Sophomore Leah Fugett scored a career-high 22 points to help the Harding Lady Bisons even their conference record with an 89-77 victory over Southern Arkansas at the Rhodes Field House on Thursday night.

Fugett made 9 of 11 shots from the floor and scored on all four of her free throw attempts. Junior Stacey Owens scored 17 points and grabbed a team-leading 10 rebounds for Harding (13-1, 1-1 Gulf South Conference). Senior Catherine McMenamy added 14 points.

Harding rebounded from its 91-77 opening conference loss to Henderson State last week to snap the Lady Bisons' 12-game winning streak. Harding coach Tim Kirby said he was glad to get back to winning ways Thursday.

“It helps my mentality a whole bunch,” Kirby said. “I hope it does for the girls too.”

Harding took the lead 8-6 on a layup by junior Kaitlin May with 16:28 left in the first half, and the Lady Bisons never trailed again. Fugett drove for a layup a few possessions later to give Harding a 20-14 lead. Fugett's layup started a 16-1 run for Harding that lasted three minutes.  A jumper by senior Ashley Anderson gave Harding a 34-15 lead with 9:15 remaining.

Southern Arkansas (6-8, 0-2) rallied to close the lead to 10 points on a pair of free throws by Crystal Kirk with 48 seconds until halftime. Two possessions later, McMenamy stole the ball and passed ahead to freshman Sierra Rollins, who scored on a fast break layup to give Harding a 47-35 halftime lead.

Harding was never able to fully pull away from Southern Arkansas in the second half. Shardae Thompson hit a layup to cut Harding's lead to 49-46 four minutes into the game, but the Lady Bisons held the lead and went ahead by as many as 12 points on several occasions.

“We feel like we're still a little rusty from Christmas time and Hawaii,” Kirby said. “We lost a little bit of edge. We talked about that tonight after the game.”

Both teams made a high percentage from the free throw line, but Harding took advantage of quantity. Southern Arkansas made 9 of 11 shots (81.8 percent); Harding connected on 20 of 23 attempts (87.0 percent).

The Lady Bisons forced 16 turnovers and outscored Southern Arkansas 23-6 in points off turnovers. Harding also held a 14-2 advantage in fast break points, most of them coming from Fugett and Rollins.

“We knew we'd get opportunities if we attacked at the right time, and I thought we did a good job tonight,” Kirby said. “Leah did a good job of doing that off the break. We told Leah, 'If you see an opportunity, take it.'”

Goldie White led Southern Arkansas with 25 points, 17 of them coming in the second half. Kmaria Hobbs added 20 points for the Lady Muleriders.

The Lady Bisons will travel to Russellville, Ark., to face Arkansas Tech on Saturday at 4 p.m.