Playing like their season was on the line, which it was, the Cowgirls found life when they needed it the most.

Behind their best performance of the league season, McNeese knocked off the defending Southland Conference champs Texas A&M-Corpus Christi 69-60 Saturday inside the Legacy Center.

A loss to the Islanders would have all but ended the Cowgirls’ hopes of making the postseason tournament. Instead, they currently hold the eighth and final spot with three games remaining.

“This was a big win for our team,” McNeese head coach Lynn Kennedy said. “This has been coming. We have been working on it, and it is getting better.”

McNeese improved to 10-18, 5-12 with its first home win against a Division I opponent this season. The Cowgirls now have four more victories than a year ago. The Islanders fell to 13-15, 5-12. 

Because they swept TAMCC, McNeese held the tiebreaker for the final playoff spot after the win that saw them up by as many as 20 points in the fourth quarter.

Only some interesting officials’ calls down the stretch made things closer than they should have been.  That, however, is another story for another day. 

Saturday, it was all about how the Cowgirls survived. 

“We knew what was on the line,” said senior Mireia Yespes. “Today was very important.”

Yespes led the way on Senior Day, finishing with a double-double. Playing often at the center spot, Yespes scored a game-high 21 points and pulled down 11 rebounds.

“I like playing all over, different positions,” said Yespes. “I was a little excited early and nervous, but that was good. We knew we had to give everything we had.”

Tyrielle Williams added 11 points, and Kiayra Ellis finished with eight and seven assists. 

“We knew how important this game was for us and it started with our defense,” said Ellis. “We came out more focused and ready to go from the start.”

The Cowgirls played by far their best first half of the league, leading 37-23 behind some hot shooting. Two days after making only 20% from the floor in a loss to Texas-Rio Grande Valley, they made 54 percent from the floor and 5 of 9 from the 3-point range.

“You could tell yesterday at practice how locked in we were,” said Kennedy. “Today we played with pace, had a rhythm and spacing.”

The Cowgirls led 62-42 with just under four minutes left when Kyla Davis hit her second 3-pointer. That’s when the whistles started to blow, and everything slowed down, but the Islanders could never get closer than seven.

“We haven’t had many 20-point leads this year, so we have to work on that,” said Kennedy.  

Corpus Christi was led by Tymberlin Criswell’s 14 points and Monae Duffy’s 13 and 11 rebounds.

McNeese will play its next two games on the road. On Thursday, the Cowgirls will play Stephen F. Austin in Nacogdoches, Texas, at 6:30 p.m., followed by a rivalry battle with the Cardinals in Lamar.

The final game of the regular season will be against New Orleans on Tuesday at 11 a.m. at home.