Thursday, she single-handedly put the Ragin’ Cajuns back into the Sun Belt Conference race.

The senior point guard turned scorer both early and late, and her nine points in the final three minutes helped the Cajuns hang on for a 65-61 victory over Arkansas-Little Rock at Long Gym.

Colbert’s three-pointer with 2:39 left gave the Cajuns (10-4, 2-1 Sun Belt) a 56-55 lead and started a streak during which she scored all nine UL points. The last of those came when she stripped standout UALR freshman guard Kim Sitzmann near midcourt and drove for a layup with 59 seconds left for a 62-56 lead.

From there, UL made enough free throws to give the visiting Trojans (9-4, 2-1) their first league loss.

"We knew it wasn’t going to be easy," said Colbert, who finished with a season-high 23 points on nine-of-14 baskets and three 3-pointers. "Give it to them (UALR), that’s a good-shooting team."

UALR ranked in the top 15 nationally in shooting entering the game, but it didn’t look that way early as the Trojans hit only three-of-17 in the game’s first 12 minutes. UL took advantage and built as much as a 15-point 22-7 lead with 7:40 left on Yolanda Jones’ driving jumper.

From that point on, though, UALR hit 19-of-32 the rest of the game, and did most of its damage at an unfamiliar place. The Trojans were 10-of-19 outside the 3-point arc and made nine of their last 14.

"We have some capable shooters there," said UALR coach Joe Foley. "With the way they (UL) defend they close up the middle, but we figured we’d get some open looks. Offensively we did a good job."

"They’d made only 47 all year in 12 games," said UL coach J. Kelley Hall of the 3-point barrage. "That’s one thing with the match-up defense we play, sometimes teams will hit threes on you. We said if we were going to get beat, we were going to get beat by the three. But we were able to limit their twos, and we were able to get to the free throw line."

Mostly, though, it was Colbert, who played with a heavily taped hand and hadn’t practiced since before the Christmas break. She had another X-ray Wednesday.