The TCU women’s basketball team improved to 5-1 on the season, winning a back and forth game against UT Rio Grande Valley 71-67.

While the Horned Frogs led the majority of the game, they had to climb out of a five point hole with 2:45 left in the game. Senior guard Zahna Medley scored nine of the Frogs’ final 12 points.

The Frogs were without two of their starting guards, Veja Hamilton and AJ Alix, as well as reserve forward Ola Akomolafe due to injuries. Medley took it upon herself to fill the void of those three players, scoring a game-high 31 points, just four points shy of her career high of 35.

“I knew I needed to take a stronger leadership role because one of our captains was out, but I took it upon myself to be a little more aggressive today,” Medley said.

Coach Raegan Pebley was pleased with the way her team overcame losing the turnover battle 16 to 9.

“It says a lot about our team that we lost the lead, kept our composure, regained the lead – our defensive rebounding was key in the late the game,” Pebley said. “Jordan Moore had some huge boards, which were needed.”

Moore and Caitlin Diaz led TCU in rebounding with nine each.

TCU hit 80.8 percent of their free throws against UT RGV, shooting 21-26 from the line, while UT RGV shot 14-21 from the line for 66.7 percent.

“It might have been the difference in the game for sure. Being able to hit those free throws allowed us to get our press set, which was huge,” Pebley said.

TCU rarely utilized their full-court press, down three key players.

“It was because of depth,” Pebley said. “We had players playing out of position today, we knew that Jada, Zahna, Caitlin, and Toree were going to have to play a lot of minutes and you just can’t sustain an effective press with the amount of minutes they were playing, so we just used it in spot moments.”

Hamilton and Alix are day-to-day and Akomolafe could be out two weeks, according to Pebley.

TCU’s next game is Tuesday night at 6 p.m. in Indianapolis against the Butler Bulldogs.