LAKE CHARLES – Javohn Garcia returned to Player of the Year form on Monday night, scoring 18 points to lead McNeese to a 73-69 win over HCU as McNeese captured its 20^th win on the season.
 
The Cowboys improve to 20-5 overall and 13-3 in Southland Conference play and has won 20 games for the third year in a row, a program first. In addition, head coach Bill Armstrong became just the second coach in school history to win 20 games in his head coaching debut season (Hall of Fame coach Glenn Duhon in 1977-78). HCU fell to 8-17 and 4-12 in the loss.
 
McNeese led 37-33 at the half and was up by nine points early after a 10-0 run seemed to get the team charged and on its way to an easy win. But missed layups and uncharacteristic turnovers allowed the Huskies to claw back into the game and pull to within one point at 28-27 at the 4:09 mark of the half.
 
The Cowboys never lost the lead after the first couple of minutes but were never able put the game away even after coming out hot in the second half when back-to-back 3s by Garcia and DJ Richards Jr. put the Cowboys up by double-digits at 47-37 with 15:23 to play.
 
HCU scored five straight points then McNeese's Carl Cherenfant answered with four straight points to grow the lead back to nine points at 53-44 with 11:55 remaining. The Cowboys had a chance to go up by 11 but another missed layup which was forced by a bad pass, turned into an easy bucket by HCU.
 
The Huskies went over three minutes without making a shot from the 10:17 mark to 7:20 left but hit all six of their free throws while the Cowboys missed two more layups in a 1:05 span, both on bad lobs, as HCU cut the gap to 60-57 with 6:54 to play.
 
A jumper by Larry Johnson, who finished with 14 points seemed to ice the game with 2:22 to play and McNeese up 71-62, then a couple of free throws by Jacolb Fredson-Cole with 47 seconds remaining made it a 73-66 lead before HCU knocked down a 3 with eight seconds to play. Cole finished with 10 points while Tyshawn Archie added 11 to round out McNeese's four double-figure scorers.
 
The Cowboys shot well for the game, connected on 29 of 54 for 53.7 percent but only made 3 of 10 from three-point range and was 12 of 17 for 71 percent at the line. HCU show 43 percent (23-53) including 6 of 20 from lone range. The Huskies were able to stay close by knocking down 17 of 19 at the line.
 
Garcia added four assists, one steal, two blocked shots, and did not turn the ball over once in 36 minutes of play, and made 8 of his 14 shot attempts.
 
The win extended McNeese's home court winning streak to 25 games and was the 28^th straight conference regular-season home win and 32^nd-consecutive win over conference competition.
 
Next up, the Cowboys will play their next two away from home, first on Saturday at East Texas A&M then next Monday at Northwestern State.