Army West Point Rolls Past St. Thomas Aquinas

WEST POINT – Army West Point women’s basketball opened its 50th season with an 81-28 win over St. Thomas Aquinas on Monday night at Christl Arena, celebrating Maggie Dixon Day. The 53-point win was the third-largest margin of victory in the program’s Division I history. Kya Smith led five Black Knights in double figures with 16 points, Brooke Wilson added a career-high 13, and Army held the Spartans to 22.0 percent shooting while forcing 25 turnovers.

Army honored members of the 2005-06 team that won the program’s first Patriot League championship and earned its first NCAA Division I Tournament bid under the late Maggie Dixon. Twenty years after that historic run, they returned to Christl Arena to celebrate her legacy. Head coach Katie Kuester was also honored for winning the 2026 Spalding® Maggie Dixon NCAA Division I Rookie Coach of the Year award, and Maggie’s brother, Jamie Dixon, spoke in a message on the videoboard.

“I visited her grave this morning,” Kuester said. “She is someone that I feel every single day with us, and she’s someone that I know would love this team. I know that we make her proud because of the brand of basketball that we play, and that’s just gritty, with a lot of joy and a lot of love. I know she’s watching over us and being really proud of us.”

St. Thomas Aquinas scored the first basket of the season, but Army answered with defense. Smith tied the game with a jumper off a Fiona Hastick steal, and Camryn Tade’s 3-pointer gave the Black Knights a 6-2 lead. Army closed the first quarter on a 10-0 run behind 3-pointers from Wilson and Reganne Reardon and layups from Smith and Hastick. It led 21-7 after one, forcing six turnovers and hitting four 3-pointers in the period.

The Black Knights kept rolling in the second quarter, opening on a 12-0 run that started with Hastick’s corner 3. That made it a 22-2 Army run spanning the first two quarters. Smith scored eight points in the period, including two free throws with four seconds left, and Army took a 44-12 lead into the half after outscoring the Spartans 23-5 in the second quarter.

Army shot 66.7 percent in the third quarter. Tade and Smith opened the half with a 6-0 run, and Wilson added a 3-pointer and two fastbreak layups to reach her career high. Reardon scored seven straight points late in the quarter, including an and-one, and freshman Julia Sedora hit a 3-pointer for her first career points to make it 69-17. In the fourth, 17 Black Knights saw action, and all five freshmen made their regular-season debuts. Audrey Annee hit back-to-back 3-pointers, and Landry Sherrer’s fastbreak layup with 42 seconds left set the final margin at 53, Army’s largest lead of the night.