By CHELSEA LEINENBACH
The BYU women’s basketball team lost a close game of 81-75 Wednesday night against the Colorado Rams.
The Cougars started the game fighting with a tight score of 15-16, but the Rams took of with a 15-0 run. After struggling through the first half, the Cougars tried to fight back by shooting 36 percent in three pointers, 32 percent from the free-point line and 46 percent overall. “The team was really good down the stretch, they didn’t give up and really kept fighting,” said coach Trent Shippen.
“But our intensity dropped. We needed to keep our intensity up the whole game, and not lower our heads and lose our confidence,” he said. “We are going to miss some shots and make mistakes, but we need to still play with the same intensity.”
The Cougars ended with a total of 27 turnovers, compared with 17 by the Rams. This stopped BYU’s trend of decreasing turnovers and was a main reason for the loss.
“We were doing better in the turnover situation the first three games, but we reverted to our old ways, which is something that we definitely need to improve on,” Shippen said.
Kari Gallup broke the school record with seven three-point shots. She scored more points than the rest of the starting team combined, totalling 31 points compared to 21 for the rest of the starters.
Angela Burgess came off the bench to score 16 points and grab eight rebounds in just 16 minutes.
“We really struggled in the beginning, but we pulled together in the end,” Burgess said. “Our attitude in the second half needed to be there throughout the whole game.” The loss dropped the Cougars’ WAC record to 0-4. BYU has come close to winning in three of the four games, but hasn’t managed to pull one out.
The Cougars come against the Wyoming Cowboy’s Saturday afternoon in Laramie. The Cowboys are currently in fifth place in the WAC’s Mountain Division with a 2-2 conference record. The Cougars and the Cowboys have similar overall records, the Cougars are 5-9 and the Cowboys are 5-8 before Thursday’s games. Wyoming has an average of 64.8 points per game, and are 2-0 in the WAC home games.
“Though their record is similar to ours, it is always a tough game in Laramie,” Shippen said.
