California Baptist University (18-0, 10-0), behind a strong third-quarter performance, completes the season sweep of UTRGV women’s basketball (4-9, 0-4) in a 79-64 victory earlier today at the Fieldhouse.
Six different Lancer players were able to find the bottom of the net to jump out to an early 21-9 lead. The Vaqueros would respond in the final minute of the first quarter by scoring five points, closing the CBU lead to 21-14.
In the second quarter the Vaqueros would continue to chip away at the Lancer lead as their backcourt duo of sophomore Jena’ Williams and senior Amara Graham would hit a three-pointer and a transition layup, respectively, to head into the break down two, 37-35.
Both Vaqueros would fill up the stat sheet as Williams finished with 10 points, five rebounds, two assists and two steals and Graham recorded a team-high 15 points and three assists to go along with five boards.
Coming out of the break, UTRGV traded baskets with CBU until junior guard Jordan Lewis hit two free-throws to give the Vaqueros their first lead of the day, 42-40, at the 7:29 mark.
The Lancers quickly responded by going on a 21-10 run to close out the quarter as senior point guard Ane Olaeta scored six of her total 13 points in route to another double-double performance with 11 assists.
In a postgame news conference via Zoom, UTRGV Head Coach Lane Lord spoke about his team’s performance in the third quarter.
“We were able to get some extra possessions there in the third quarter, make a nice little run, made two or three baskets in a row which got us going. Then we kind of stalled out after that and missed a lot of wide-open, easy shots.”
The lead would only balloon more as the Lancers outscored the Vaqueros 18-12 in the final frame.
Lancer sophomore guard Sydney Palma tally a new career-high, scoring 23 points on a perfect 9-9 shooting from the field and 4-4 from deep. Sophomore forward Caitlyn Harper finished with her fifth double-double performance of the season with 13 points and 11 rebounds.
UTRGV junior center Burcu Soysal was able to put the ball in the basket for 13 points and corralled a career-high 10 rebounds to capture her first double-double of the season.
The Vaqueros have been in and out of quarantine due to COVID-19 over the past month and by completing their weekend series against the Lancers and the Antelopes of Grand Canyon University last week, have already played more games than in the entire month of January.
Lord says as the team settles into consistently holding practices and games every weekend, the team should be ready come on March 10 for the WAC Tournament in Las Vegas.
“Knock on wood we can continue to grow this weekend and actually have three, four practices before we play… go to Seattle and improving like we’ve been doing, and everything would take care of itself at that point.”
As the UTRGV Athletics department continues to mourn the loss of head men’s basketball coach Lew Hill, Lord closed his news conference echoing similar thoughts as Friday.
“I want to make sure we mention coach Hill every day for the rest of our lives. What he did for this program and for me personally, for our university, our players, our community. Peace and love coach Hill.”
UTRGV next weekend will travel to the American northwest to face off against the Redhawks of Seattle U at 5 p.m. Feb. 19 and 20.
You can watch the game live on the WAC Digital Network at wacdigitalnetwork.com.
Twitter: @Radio_Rubio
