Joe Foley played only seven players, but tired legs prevailed Saturday at the Jack Stephens Center in Little Rock where the University of Arkansas at Little Rock women's basketball team topped Texas-Arlington 47-40.
UALR leaned on its defense in its second game back from a 20-day break due to covid-19, holding the Mavericks to a season-low 40 points -- the fewest the Trojans have allowed since Nov. 14, 2018 -- en route to their first victory since Jan. 1.
"I think the intensity our kids were playing with [was better]," Foley said. "We got five, six kids playing together and playing hard. Man, they're making it hard to score on them."
The Trojans (6-5, 2-3 Sun Belt Conference) rode their defense to secure the weekend split, forcing 21 Texas-Arlington turnovers and limiting the Mavericks to 18.8% shooting from three-point range.
In her second start of the season, forward Alayzha Knapp scored a season-high 18 points on 7-of-17 shooting, scoring eight in the final quarter to help the Trojans pull away. Teal Battle added 14 points, and Krystan Vornes navigated foul trouble to finish with a career-high 16 rebounds.
UALR's Mayra Caicedo kept a steady hand on the offense, powering the Trojans to a first-half lead they never gave up, and dished out 11 assists to go with four points.
Jordynn Herndandez's 14 point-effort represented the only Mavericks' scorer in double figures as the Texas-Arlington offense went quiet following a 55-50 win Friday night.
UALR returns to host Louisiana-Lafayette on Monday in its third game in four days.
"When we're not scoring, we can play good defense," Vornes said. "I think that's what everybody locked in on. Coach had been stressing it the last couple of practices. The seniors, me and Teal [Battle], we just kept everybody together."
The teams shot a combined 5 of 28 from the field in a slow opening quarter, and Trojans were without a field goal for the first 5:04. UALR went up 9-4 in the closing minutes of the quarter when Caicedo scored on back-to-back lay-ups, finishing the second after a crafty Euro step in the paint.
The baskets opened an 11-2 UALR run with Caicedo, a junior guard from Colombia, helping grow the lead further in the second quarter. Her pass to Battle for a three-pointer followed by an assist to Knapp for a mid-range shot put the Trojans up 16-6 with 6:51 remaining in the first half.
Hernandez and Texas-Arlington punched back with an 8-2 run, but five points from Knapp in the closing minutes handed UALR a 22-17 halftime lead.
Caicedo finished with five first-half assists, and scored or assisted on 15 of the Trojans' 22 points before halftime.
"When you've got a point guard you know can break the press by themselves and can get through traffic, that's always a security blanket," Foley said. "You don't have to worry about making this pass or that pass, that's a plus."
UALR maintained its advantage early in the third quarter and led by as many as nine on Knapp's foul-line jumper that put the Trojans ahead 29-20. Texas-Arlington responded with its most sustained offensive pressure of the game, scoring eight points, including five from Shyia Smith, in the final 2:50 to close the gap before UALR's Angelique Francis hit a desperation three-pointer just before the buzzer, restoring a 34-28 Trojans lead.
Knapp proved the difference in the fourth quarter, scoring eight points on 4-of-7 shooting to seal UALR's second conference win of the season. The sophomore made a pair of shots for the Trojans' first four points of the quarter, and Battle's jumper at the 4:24 mark handed UALR a 40-30 advantage, it's biggest lead of the game, and the Trojans sailed from there.
"I didn't want to lose to a team 3-1," Knapp said, referring to the 2-2 season series with the Mavericks. "We had to get this win, so I'm glad we got it."