Exhibition match not too friendly for UVU women’s hoops

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Kyle McDonald | Sports editor | @kylesportsbias

OREM, Utah — For more collegiate teams, an exhibition match is supposed to be a game that you win easily and which are able to give some younger players some minutes.  In the case of the Utah Valley University women’s basketball team, Colorado State University-Pueblo had other ideas.

Just two nights after upsetting Southern Utah University 74-51, they shot 42.6% from the field and hit 10 3-pointers to defeat the Wolverines 67-53 on Saturday afternoon.

“I thought early in the game UVU was out executing us,” CSU-Pueblo head coach Jim Turgeon said. “We were making a lot of mistakes but when you have some like T (Tuileisu Anderson) step up and make some tough shots it covers up a lot of mistakes.”

Anderson scored a game-high 22 points and had four rebounds and four assists.  She was joined by Molly Rohrer who had a double-double with 15 points and 10 rebounds.  Ashley Piper also scored in double-digits with 10.

Rohrer was also big down the stretch as she was able to score down low and also keep possession alive with offensive rebounds.

“We’ve tried to instill is togetherness and toughness, both mental and physical,” Turgeon said. “They are probably tired of me saying it over and over again but we’ve really tried to instill that in our girls. I’ve thought if we can do that toughness stuff in practice and off the court it would come on the court and it did today.”

Preseason first team All-WAC selection Rhaiah Spooner-Knight led the Wolverines with 14 points.  She also collected six rebounds.  Mariah Seals joined her in double-digits with 12 points respectively. Senior center Sam Loggins had seven points and seven boards for UVU.

The Wolverines open their 2015-16 campaign on Nov. 13 at BYU where tipoff is scheduled for 3 p.m. MT.