Stop me if you’ve heard this story before — Josie Williams and Maria Carvalho go off to lead the Utah Valley women’s basketball team to a victory.
Williams scored a career-high 28 points and Carvalho added 18 to help lead the Wolverines to their fifth-straight victory, a 67-61 win over the Seattle U Redhawks at the Redhawk Center on Thursday, Feb. 24.
In addition to her career night in points, Williams also snatched 16 boards for her 20th double-double on the season, which is tied for the second-most in Division I women’s basketball. Madison Grange rounded out the scoring effort with 14 points, nine of which came in the first half.
The Wolverines started hot from beyond the arc, draining three treys in the first quarter, two of which came off the hand of Carvalho and the other from Grange. UVU had five offensive rebounds in the opening frame alone but were only able to turn those into two second-chance points.
After taking a 17-9 lead at the end of one, the Wolverines added on with the first three points of the second, but the Redhawks responded with an 18-3 run to take a 27-23 lead. UVU bounced back from there, closing out the half on a 13-2 run of their own to claim a 36-29 advantage at intermission. Williams was unstoppable in the second quarter, scoring 13 of her 28 points in just seven minutes of court time.
Following the break, Seattle U slowly chipped into the Wolverines’ lead, cutting the lead down to just two at the end of the quarter. UVU went a perfect five-for-five from the charity stripe in the quarter, including a crucial and-one conversion by Josie Williams.
The Wolverines used their dominant interior presence to close out the game, outrebounding the Redhawks 15-8 over the final ten minutes. Williams grabbed seven of those boards, including four offensive rebounds that turned into six second-chance points for UVU. Carvalho and Kayla Anderson converted three out of four free throws in the final 23 seconds to ice the game for the Wolverines.
Dan Nielson’s team is playing its best basketball of the season at the right time coming down the home stretch of the season. Over their five-game winning streak, the Wolverines have an average margin of victory of 22 points and have climbed up to within a game of third-place California Baptist heading into Saturday’s matchup with the Lancers.
The Wolverines have just three more games in the regular season, wrapping up their road slate on Saturday, Feb. 26, against CBU before returning home to the UCCU Center for the final two home games of the season. Saturday’s matchup is scheduled to tip-off at 1 p.m. MDT and can be streamed on ESPN+.
