By Sara Trump
In basketball the term home-court advantage is used because the crowd is behind you, and the officials usually favor the home team.
The BYU women”s basketball team experienced no such favors from the officials Friday night, Feb. 23, as they fell to rival, Utah 67-55.
“We battled hard and played a good game,” said coach Trent Shippen. “But there were some calls that didn”t go our way.”
Some calls is quite an understatement considering the Utes shot 30 free throws to the Cougars 13.
In a game of aggressive play and stingy defense, both teams displayed their offensive execution in different runs throughout the game.
The Utes used an 8-0 run near the end of the first half to take a 31-25 lead into the locker room at half time, but the Cougars answered with a 7-0 run to open the second half.
“We played some great spurts,” Shippen said. “We just needed to execute a little better and not have so many turnovers.”
The Cougars got up by as many as six points in the second half, but the Utes came back with a 17-2 run over the next six and half minutes to take the lead for good.
Besides offensive runs, Utah clamped down on defense and stumped the Cougars” execution.
Amy Ewert not only led the Utes with 13 points, but also held All-American Erin Thorn, who averages 16.4 points a game, to only four points.
“Ewert is a great defender,” Thorn said. “She was all over me and didn”t allow me to get a whole lot of looks.”
Clicking on all ends, the Utes also had five players in double figures.
Besides Ewert, Whitney Sutak and Kristina Andersen each had 12 points while Lauren Beckman and Lori Redd-Casstagnetto each chipped in ten.
“Utah is a deep team,” Shippen said. “You try and shut down one player, but then a different player is always stepping up.”
Stacy Jensen led the Cougars with 16 points despite getting in foul trouble in the first half and playing only eight minutes.
“I just wanted to focus on my penetration and getting outside shots,” Jensen said. “My teammates did a good job of getting me open shots.”
Despite losing to the Utes in both meetings this season, the Cougars are looking forward to possibly playing them in the conference tournament because they are still confident they can come out victorious.
“I don”t think this sets us back at all,” Jensen said. “The key is to just keep our heads up because we know we can play with Utah and beat them.”
Such optimism will help heading into the final week of conference play, as the Cougars host New Mexico and Air Force — which are must-wins in order to get a good seed heading into the tournament.
“Right now we need to focus on our next games,” Shippen said. “The tournament seed is important, but we need to win our last two.”
