By Sara Trump
The BYU women”s basketball team let out a huge sigh of relief Thursday night, after defeating UNLV in what turned out to be a nail biter, 89-83 at the Marriott Center.
Up by 16 points with 5:32 left in the game, the Cougars were looking to coast to a blow out victory.
The Rebels had other plans in mind, however, as they suddenly came awake with a 20-7 run to pull within three points with just over a minute left in the game.
“They got resurrected and started hitting their shots,” said coach Trent Shippen. “We started getting passive, and the momentum shifted their way.”
That momentum came in the form of aggressive defense and sharp shooting for UNLV. The Rebels hit all five of their second half three pointers during their run in the last five minutes.
“UNLV started to relax and their shots kept falling,” said guard Erin Thorn, who led all scorers with 25 points. “And they were hitting tough shots, we had our hands up in their faces and everything.”
The Rebels were led by guard Kinesha Davis who hit four three pointers for a team high 21 points. Forward, Linda Frohlich also chipped in 14 points and a game high 18 rebounds.
Defense was key to both teams with the intensity of physical play and fouls galore.
“There was a lot of shoving down low,” said forward Jennifer Leitner, who had ten points and six boards. “There were also a ton of fouls and no-calls.”
Overall, the Cougars were clicking on all ends offensively, with good ball movement to get open shots.
Besides Thorn and Leitner, Stacy Jensen had 12 points, and Caroline Beus added 11 to create a balanced scoring attack for the Cougars.
“We executed our game plan well,” Shippen said. “We just need to keep playing down the stretch.”
In the end the Cougars turned to the fundamentals, however, and were able to hit seven of eight free throws in the last minute and 24 of 26 overall, to pull out the win.
“Hitting our free throws at the end was huge for us,” Shippen said. “We need to learn from this, however.”
And learn they will, as San Diego State comes to town Saturday night with a season sweep in mind – after already defeating the Cougars earlier this season by two points.
“We got to win this game to set ourselves up for the conference tournament,” Thorn said. “We didn”t play well when we were there, so we want to come out and show them how we can play.”
The Aztecs (11-10, 3-5) are coming off a loss to Utah which puts them fifth in the conference, while the Cougars (13-8, 5-3) are looking to climb in the conference standings.
