Middle Tennessee women’s basketball held on to a comeback win against Sam Houston State University, 68-67.  

Senior Alayna Contreras led MTSU with a second half surge to come back from a 12-point deficit and survived a late Bearkats run to pick up head coach Rick Insell’s 499th career win at MTSU.  

“A one pointer, it’s just as good as a 40 pointer,” Insell said on WGNS radio postgame. “I’ll take it today, I mean we didn’t play real smart at times, but we played good enough.”  

The Lady Raiders trailed 12 points midway through the second quarter before cutting the deficit to six to end the first half. 

Sam Houston shot the ball above 50% and scored 14 points off MTSU turnovers to give itself the lead at halftime. Sam Houston’s Alaisha Brown, who averaged 1.5 points per game, scored 10 points off the bench going 3-of-4 beyond the arc to lead the Bearkats in the first two frames.  

Offensively, the first half was all Contreras and Macie Phifer for Middle Tennessee as they both finished in double digits. 

The second half was a complete 180 as the Lady Raiders shot 54% from the field and held Sam Houston to 29% with only eight made baskets.  

Contreras continued to knock down shots in the second half, leading Middle Tennessee with 12 points on the way to a 22-point finish. The rest of the Lady Raiders stepped up to take a 68-60 lead with three minutes left in the fourth quarter.  

While Contreras had a good game, the player that won the game for MTSU was freshman point guard Kirston Verhulst, Insell said.  

“She [Verhulst] went in there and got some layups, she had to guard their toughest man, she made some great decisions,” Insell said. “I was really, really, really happy with what she did.”  

In the final three minutes Sam Houston sent the game down to the wire slowly cutting the MTSU lead to one point in the last 30 seconds of the game. Middle Tennessee in the final minutes had two missed baskets and four turnovers.  

“We had some miscommunications there, I’d rather got a shot clock violation when we were up eight,” Insell said. “We’re shooting the ball, shooting threes, throwing the ball everywhere. We’re just miscommunications right there at the end.”  

The miscommunication gave the Bearkats a last second chance to win the game. Off the inbound, Sam Houston’s Fanta Kone drove to the lane before kicking the ball out to Whitney Dunn, who left the game’s winning shot short.  

The win puts Insell a win away from 500 Division I career wins, all at Middle Tennessee. MTSU hosts the University of Delaware for the first time in program history on Jan. 22 at the Murphy Center as Insell attempts to break 500 wins.  

“That ain’t even entered my mind,” Insell said. “I’m really proud of our basketball team. We had to gut it up down here. We had two big games, and we got to take care of ourselves more than anything.”