By Whitney Craft
The Cougars put up a good fight for Utah in the Marriott Center but in the end they couldn”t hold on as they went down 63-55 and dropped their record in conference play to 3-3.
Tough defense from the Cougars forced the Utes to run out their shot clock time more than three times and give up 9 turnovers in the first half.
With two 3-pointers early from Utah”s Kalee Whipple, Utah found itself on top by two with 11:58 left in the first half. Not soon after, Coriann Wood answered right back with a 3-pointer of her own to put the Cougars up by one.
With 7:37 left in the half, the Utes were shooting 31.3 percent from the field while the Cougars shot 35 percent. As a team, the Utes had shot from the 3-point line 10 different times compared to the Cougars three attempts.
The Cougars found themselves in foul trouble with five minutes left in the half allowing the Utes three trips to the line and five points to show for it.
With three seconds left in the half the Cougars lost the ball to Utah”s Kalee Whipple who was then fouled and sent to the foul line. Whipple made both of her free throws to tie up the score at 27 to end the half.
Whipple ended the half with 10 points for the Utes while her teammate Katie King led the Utes in rebounding with 8.
Coriann Wood ended the half leading the Cougars with 7 points and 4 rebounds. Teammate Kristen Riley followed close behind her with 5 points and 2 rebounds.
The bench put up 17 points for the Cougars by the end of the half while the Utah bench only gave up 2 points.
Utah started the second half with a 10-0 run in the first five minutes with points from King and Morgan Warburton. In those same five minutes the Cougars gave up 3 turnovers.
“Our heads were still up but we kind of lost that momentum,” said Coriann Wood about coming back to play in the second half.
The 10-point streak was ended shortly after with a 3-pointer from Wood to get the team fired up. The Utes continued to dominate throughout the second half showing the Cougars they weren”t leaving without a win.
With 4:43 left in the second half, Jazmine Foreman got a steal, took the ball down the court and dished it to Shawnee Slade who finished the play with a lay-up to put the Cougars within 5 of the Utes.
From there the Cougars fell behind as much as 10 points but kept playing.
At the 1:17 mark in the second half, the Cougars had narrowed the score back to 5 and were looking to rally back.
In the last 40 seconds of the game, the Cougars brought the score within three but the Utes weren”t going to give up. In a last second effort the Cougars brought the ball down with the hopes of getting back in the game but Janita Badon stole the ball for the Utes and took it own for a lay-up putting the score at 55-62. After another free-throw from the Utes the final score ended at 55-63 with the win going to Utah.
“We had a lot of prepartation coming into this game. I just think our mental lapses caused us the lost,” said Shawnee Slade after the game. “We know what we”re capable of and we just gotta take it to Wyoming.”
Coriann Wood and Keilani scored in double-figures for the Cougars with Wood also putting up a new career-high of three assists.
Utah”s Morgan Warburton led her team to finish with 17 points for the Utes.
Last night was the 92 nd meeting between the BYU and Utah Women”s basketball teams.
