Kyle Bruderer, Sports Writer, @brudkyle
On Monday night the Utah Valley University women’s basketball team fell to Colorado Mesa 61-67 at the UCCU center in their only preseason game this year.
“We just have to get a sense of urgency to us on the defensive end and on the boards. We have to take care of the basketball you know, we had 18 turnovers and they had 14 more shots than we did and 9 offensive rebounds in the second half. It’s going to be tough to win games if they are getting that many more shots than we are.” Head Coach Cathy Nixon said.
The Wolverines lead by as many as 10 early on in the game but the Mavericks fought back to take a two point lead at the end of the half. The two teams traded buckets back and forth until midway through the second half, Colorado Mesa then went on an 11-0 run which UVU never recovered from. Leading the way for the Mavericks was Erin Reichle who scored 27 points and had 8 rebounds.
Junior center Sam Loggins had an impressive performance for UVU with 18 points and seven rebounds. Newcomer Patrice Toston distributed the ball well finishing with 5 assists to go along with her 13 points, Rhaiah Spooner-Knight added 12 points for UVU as well. Freshman point guard Mariah Seals filled the stat sheet up with 11 points, four rebounds, three steals, and three blocks in her first game as a Wolverine.
The Wolverines will open the regular season at home against Eastern Washington on November 15th at 4:30 p.m. MT.
