Following a 17-day layoff between games – their second-longest of the season after a 28-day gap – the Howard Payne Lady Jackets pushed their win streak to three and evened their overall record with a 63-55 triumph over the winless McMurry Lady War Hawks Thursday night at the Brownwood Coliseum.

“I thought we played with intensity at certain times, it’s just that lack of game experience,” said HPU head coach Yannick Denson. “I thought we did a really good job rebounding the basketball today … and I thought we did a pretty good job at handling the situations when they came, the runs that they went on.”

Howard Payne (3-3, 0-0) hit just 32 percent (21 of 66) of its shots, 13 percent (3 of 23) of its treys, and 58 percent (18 of 31) of its free throws, but owned a 56-43 edge in rebounds which led to 23 second-chance points.

“Rebounding the basketball, point blank period,” Denson said when asked about the brightest spot in the Lady Jackets’ performance. “We haven’t dominated any team like we did today. I thought we did a really good job of making that a point of emphasis. We have some things that we need to watch on film and tweak a little bit with our defensive principles, but overall I’m pretty satisfied with today’s victory.”

The Lady Jackets also limited McMurry (0-7, 0-3) to 32 percent (20 of 63) shooting from the field and 22 percent (4 of 18) shooting from three-point land, while the Lady War Hawks converted just 52 percent (11 of 21) from the free throw line.

HPU freshman Amanda Turpin led the Lady Jackets with 18 points in 20 minutes of action, including 16 points in the second half.

“She’s the freshman we knew she was going to be,” Denson said. “I had to coach her up in the first half about playing at that speed, that not being the speed we want to play at, and playing a little bit harder. But I coached her up and she went into the game and made some plays, and that’s what real ballers do. For her, 7 of 15 (shooting) is not bad at all but I want to find a way for her to get 18 in less shots and rebound the basketball maybe a little bit better and take care of the basketball.”

Chelsey Harris also finished in double figures with 12 points followed by Kayla Brigance with nine points and a team-high 10 rebounds, Bria Neal and Delaney Ingram with four points and nine boards apiece, Salina Ali, Kendra Brown and Payge Grable with four points each as well, Catlyn Ward with three points and Lily Janek with one.

McMurry received 17 points from Destiny Mathews and 14 points from Aubrey Guerra.

The Lady Jackets trailed 12-10 after one quarter, but grabbed a 27-23 lead at halftime as Grable sank three free throws with less than a second to go in the second quarter as she was fouled at half-court while hurling up a desperation shot.

Turpin drained a three-pointer to start the second half, giving HPU a 30-23 edge, as the Lady Jackets never trailed in the final two quarters.

McMurry trimmed the deficit to 32-30 at the 8:11 mark, but Turpin scored in the paint to push the lead back to two possessions.

Back-to-back buckets from fellow freshman Brigance extended HPU’s advantage to 40-32 with 1:46 left in the third.

“When you’re playing two freshmen a lot, over 12-15 minutes a game, they don’t know what it’s like to go game speed or go 100 more than a minute or two,” Denson said. “But I thought we did a pretty good job today.”

After two buckets from McMurry, Ward knocked down a three-pointer to extend the HPU lead to 43-36 with 26 seconds left in third, and HPU carried a 43-38 edge into the fourth quarter.

With the lead trimmed to three points, 45-42, with 7:48 to go, Turpin answered with a trey and a deuce to match the largest advantage of the game for HPU, 50-42, with 6:43 left.

McMurry came no closer than five points the rest of the contest.

The Lady Jackets will seek a fourth consecutive victory at 1 p.m. Saturday as they host undefeated East Texas Baptist (13-0, 5-0) – the ASC East leader.

“I want to see a lot more intensity on the defensive end,” Denson said of the team goals for Saturday’s contest. “Not giving shooters an opportunity to see the rim, take the shot away. ETBU does a really good job of shooting three balls so if we don’t they’re going to shoot us out of our own gym. We also have to do a better job of making shots. We took 23 threes today when we didn’t need to take but about 15. You have to get kids to recognize the right shot in each possession.”