Women’s basketball team loses to UTSA at the buzzer
Akshay Mirchandani // Staff Writer
After getting its first Conference USA win against Marshall on Wednesday, the Mean Green women’s basketball team lost a 58-56 heart breaker against the University of Texas at San Antonio after the Roadrunners hit a three pointer at the final buzzer.
The Mean Green (7-10, 1-3) had no answer for UTSA (11-6, 2-2) in the first half. The Roadrunners opened the game on fire, shooting 48 percent from the field while making seven of 11 three-pointers, and led by as many as 18 points. In comparison, the Mean Green only shot 36 percent from the field in the first half.
“We didn’t finish with contact as well as we needed to,” head coach Mike Petersen said. “We had the ball inside a lot and I didn’t really have a huge beef with most of our shots. We gotta finish.”
The game changed in the second half as UTSA began to cool off on the offensive end, shooting just 35 percent. After chipping away at the lead, with 9:00 left in the game, a pair of free throws by sophomore forward Acheil Tac gave the Mean Green a 44-43 lead.
“I think it started defensively, we were just stringing together stops,” senior guard Laura McCoy said. “We were executing better offensively as well, but defensively we were getting stops, they weren’t shooting wide open shots and we were rebounding the ball better.”
UTSA tied the score with 5:38 left and eventually took the lead, 52-51, with 1:12 remaining. A three pointer extended the UTSA lead to four points with 33.8 seconds remaining in the game. UNT cut the UTSA lead to 55-53 and had 13.3 seconds left to shoot for the tie or win. McCoy hit a three to take a 56-55 lead, but UTSA guard Miki Turner responded with a three of her own, giving the Roadrunners the win at the buzzer.
“We were going to go for a two,” McCoy said. “We had Briesha [Wynn] coming off a double screen and it kind of got disrupted and it was in the middle of the play and I didn’t know how much time was left and I was just trying to get the ball up there.”
One of the bright spots for the Mean Green was sophomore forward Alexis Hyder, who continued her stellar play with 20 points and 12 rebounds.
“I’m just trying to stay focused,” Hyder said. “It’s just doing the little things. My first thing is not necessarily to shoot all the time, it’s get a rebound first and go from there.”
The Mean Green will have to find a way to rebound from this loss as the team will travel to the east coast to play Florida International University (8-9, 2-2) at 5 p.m. on Wednesday and Florida Atlantic University (11-5, 1-2) at 4 p.m. on Saturday.
Feature photo: Senior guard Laura McCoy lifts the ball above the University of Texas at San Antonio defender’s head and looks for an open teammate. McCoy was credited with two assists during the home game on Saturday at the Super Pit. Photo by Edward Balusek / Staff Photographer
There are no comments at the moment, do you want to add one?
Write a comment