CORALVILLE, Iowa (March 14, 2026) - Halli Poock returned just in time to help defending champion Murray State get back to the MVC title game.
Poock sparked an 18-0 run that turned the game and became the school’s single-season scoring leader as the top-seeded Racers rallied in the fourth quarter to beat Northern Iowa 72-59 Saturday to start the semifinal session of the Credit Union1 Missouri Valley Conference Women’s Basketball Tournament Saturday afternoon at Xtream Arena.
Murray State (30-3), which already held the school record for victories, became just the second Valley team to win 30 games and will try for the championship repeat at 1 p.m. Sunday. But it took some effort to get there over a feisty UNI team seeking its seventh appearance in the finals and first since 2022.
Keslyn Secrist led the Racers with a season-high with 22 points on 9-for-15 shooting that included 4-of-8 from 3-point range. Haven Ford added 19 points, Poock finished with 13 to go with seven assists and Sharnecce Currie-Jelks logged her nation-leading 25th double-double with 10 points and 13 rebounds, while also setting the Racers single-season rebounding record.
It was a sweet get-even victory for Murray State, which has won 14 straight since suffering its only league loss, 89-74 at UNI on Jan. 23. It was especially satisfying for Secrist, who had scored only four and eight points in the two games with the Panthers and was a combined 0-for-5 from deep.
Fourth-seeded UNI (18-14) got a nice lift from freshman Abby Tuttle, who scored a career-high 14 points after going scoreless and playing just 3 minutes in a quarterfinal win over Bradley. Ryley Goebel, the league’s Defensive Player of the Year, missed considerable time because of foul trouble and wound up with 12 points and eight rebounds. Jenna Twedt also scored 12 and collected seven rebounds but went just 3-for-14 from the field after scoring 25 against Bradley.
Poock, the Jackie Stiles Player of the Year, went quiet after scoring five points in the game’s first 2:14 and sat much of the third quarter after picking up her third foul. When she returned with her team trailing 53-50, she promptly showed what the Racers had been missing and proceeded to torment the school just a few miles from her home in Waterloo, Iowa.
She drove for a basket to start the fourth-quarter scoring, fed Currie-Jelks for a layup, buried a 3 from the left corner, then knocked down a trey from the same spot. Secrist followed with a baseline jumper and two more triples as the Racers made seven of their first nine shots in the quarter to open a 68-53 lead. UNI, meanwhile, missed its first 10 shots of the quarter before Goebel connected on a putback to cut the lead to 68-57. But only 2:55 remained, not enough time for a Panthers’ comeback.
Murray State’s late burst was the last in a game of runs.
The Racers scored the game’s first nine points, then really got rolling in the second quarter to open a 38-20 lead. Back came the Panthers, who scored the final 11 points of the half to pull to 38-31, then started the second half with a 13-5 run to take 44-43 lead on Twedt’s drive to the hoop. When Elise Jaeger’s steal lead to a Tuttle layup, UNI had its 53-50 lead as the third quarter ended.
It evaporated quickly when Poock went back to work.
Poock raised her season total to 728 points, breaking the school record of 723 that Ashley Hayes set in the 2008-09 season. She also passed former teammate Katelyn Young (717) and Drake’s Wanda Ford (727) move into ninth place on the MVC’s single-season list. Hayes played before Murray State was in the league. Currie-Jelks pushed her season rebounds total to 385, surpassing the previous school mark of 375 boards that stood for 47 years, set by Jackie Mounts in the 1978-79 season.
The only other league team to win 30 games was Missouri State’s 1991-92 Final Four team, which finished 31-3.