Army West Point Athletics
Army West Point
1-0,0-0Patriot
St. Thomas Aquinas
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| Team | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | F |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| St. Thomas Aquinas | 7 | 5 | 9 | 7 | 28 |
| Army West Point | 21 | 23 | 25 | 12 | 81 |
November 02, 2026 | Women's Basketball
WEST POINT, N.Y. – 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."
How It Happened
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.
Black Knights Leaders
- Kya Smith led Army with 16 points on 6-of-9 shooting and a perfect 4-of-4 at the line, adding six rebounds (four offensive) and two steals in just 19 minutes. She had 14 points at halftime and is now 21 points shy of 1,000 for her career.
- Brooke Wilson scored a career-high 13 points on 5-of-6 shooting, including 3-of-4 from 3-point range, with four assists and two steals.
- Reganne Reardon was perfect off the bench, going 5-of-5 from the field with 12 points in 13 minutes.
- Audrey Annee added 11 points off the bench, hitting three 3-pointers.
- Camryn Tade (3-of-4 FG, 2-of-3 3FG) and Fiona Hastick (two 3-pointers, four rebounds) scored eight points each. Hastick passed 700 career points.
By the Numbers
- The 53-point win is Army's third-largest margin of victory as a Division I program, behind only a 65-point win over Coast Guard (2000) and a 61-point win over St. Joseph's Brooklyn (2017).
- Army's 28 points allowed tied the fewest for the program as a Division I program, matching the 93-28 win over Coast Guard on Dec. 14, 2000. The Spartans shot 9-of-41 (22.0 percent) and were held to single digits in all four quarters.
- The Black Knights forced 25 turnovers, recorded 11 steals and scored 33 points off turnovers.
- Army outrebounded St. Thomas Aquinas 38-24, including 13 offensive boards, and outscored the Spartans 30-4 in the paint.
- The bench outscored St. Thomas Aquinas' bench 35-8. Eleven Black Knights scored, and Army made 12 3-pointers.
- Kuester improves to 27-8 at Army and 16-2 at Christl Arena. Army is now 4-0 all-time against St. Thomas Aquinas.
Head Coach Katie Kuester
On the defense:
"Obviously extremely proud of our defense today. Four single-digit quarters is exactly what one of our goals was. Coach Maggie [Associate HC Maggie Gallagher] handles our defense, and she's relentless with them every single day, and these girls respond really well."
On the 25 forced turnovers:
"They had three assists and 25 turnovers. That's all grit. That's all heart. That's all mentality. And that's exactly who we're going to be all the way through March."
On Maggie Dixon Day:
"I visited her grave this morning. 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."
On Kya Smith:
"She picked up exactly where she left off. That kid's the heart and the engine and the soul of this program. I know what I'm getting from Kya Smith every single day, whether it's an off day or a practice day or a game day. We're playing against UConn, we're playing against STAC, doesn't matter. I know what I'm getting from her, and so do her teammates, which is the most important piece."
On Fiona Hastick:
"She just has such a way about her. A great aura of confidence, and a calmness to her on both ends of the ball. She really missed a year of defense with us, and she's come back with a pop in her step. Her and Kya are two captains and they're everything to us. I'm proud of her to reap the rewards of her work in the dark, and it's coming to light now."
On Audrey Annee:
"We love that kid, all of us do. Every single shot she has taken in the last three months, I think, is going in. Audrey did a phenomenal job, and honestly, her time has been coming. It was just a matter of when, and she was ready."
On the depth:
"We have some of the most competitive practices I've been involved in in my 15 years of coaching. This is how it's supposed to look. We are supposed to go in there and dominate, and we are supposed to be able to be in a situation where everyone can get in. I'm just proud that they took advantage of their opportunity."
On the identity:
"We're just a bunch of competitors. We're a bunch of dogs. We just love playing with and for each other, and it doesn't matter who we're competing against. We're going to be exactly who we are and be suffocating defensively for a full 40."
On team culture:
"It's hard with 18 people on a roster to bring everybody together, but that's Coach Katie's biggest thing every single time: culture, culture, culture. We're going to be a team before we're basketball players."
On leading from the post:
"Coach Mary [Sheehan], who's one of our post coaches, says post players lead from the front, and we take that to heart. Even though we're inside the play, we can direct the play."
On the 2005-06 team:
"They spoke to us a couple of practices ago about their experience, having her as a coach and the changeover that they had, and being able to stay together as a team and bring in a new coach with a whole bunch of energy. We were really able to connect with that with Coach Katie. Knowing that their experience was a lot like ours, and knowing how successful they were, I think it makes us hopeful for our future."
On the 2005-06 team:
"It's really meaningful to know the legacy that they left on this team, and that Maggie Dixon left on this team. It's really special that people that she coached came out to see us."
On the intensity:
"I think you saw it at UConn. The intensity that we came out with, I think we scared them a little bit. And same thing today. We came out with a lot of intensity. We prepare equally for every team and we go hard every day in practice, regardless of who we're playing."
Up Next
Army hits the road for its first regular-season road game on Thursday, Nov. 5, at Brown at 7 p.m. in Providence, R.I.
About Army West Point Women's Basketball
The Army West Point women's basketball program competes in the Patriot League and plays its home games at Christl Arena in West Point, N.Y. For more information, visit GoArmyWestPoint.com and follow @ArmyWestPointWBB on Instagram and @ArmyWP_WBB.
Media Contact
Contact Toni Bianco, Army West Point Assistant Director of Athletic Communications, for all media inquiries.
tonibianco518@gmail.com | (516) 941-6310
Army West Point Athletic Association, Inc. (AWPAA)
AWPAA is an IRS code 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation established to execute the United States Military Academy's intercollegiate athletics program. AWPAA is led by a board of directors that provides guidance to the director of athletics, who serves as the primary advisor to the USMA Superintendent and the USMA leadership on all NCAA operations. The AWPAA mission is to recruit, educate, train and inspire leaders of character who are committed to the Army values through an extraordinary Division I athletic experience.
