OREM— In a hard-fought, overtime game in the Lockhart Arena, the UVU women’s basketball team was defeated by CSU Bakersfield by the score of 63 to 59. Jazmyne Bartee led the Runners with 23 points and 13 rebounds. Taylor Gordon led the Wolverines with 22 points and 11 rebounds.
In the final seconds of the fourth quarter, Gabrielle Leos hit a 3-pointer to give the Wolverines a two-point lead with four seconds left. After a timeout, the Runners found Bartee on the inbounds pass under the basket to tie the game and force overtime. In overtime, Aja Williams hit a free-throw with two seconds left to seal the win for the Runners.
“Obviously, it’s disappointing not to come away with the win,” UVU head coach Cathy Nixon said. “We played well enough to put ourselves in position to win it. A few missed free-throws and a few mistakes on the defensive end and it didn’t go our way.”
UVU started the fourth quarter poorly but quickly flipped the switch with a 7-0 run to take a 48-47 lead. The runners led by one with the final seconds ticking away before Leos hit a corner 3-pointer to seemingly give UVU the last second victory, before Bartee responded to force overtime. Bartee continued to make the difference in overtime, finishing the game being a perfect 10-10 from the field.
“She’s just crazy athletic,” Nixon said, “She’s long and athletic, quick off the floor. We had a hard time containing her.”
After a slow start shooting and being down nine points in the first quarter, UVU bounced back to lead for large portions of the game, mainly due to the ability to get to the free-throw line. Taylor Gordon shot 13 herself and UVU shot a total of 25 free throws compared to just seven for the Runners. The Wolverines ended the game shooting 80 percent from the free-throw line.
“That’s another one of the toughness quotients that we talked about,” Nixon said, “I think we’re getting better, it’s encouraging.”
Some of the things that were encouraging was the fact that UVU won the turnover battle and had 20 offensive rebounds. Unfortunately, it was not enough this game.
With the loss UVU drops to 6-13 and 1-3 in WAC conference play. This coming week the Wolverines will look to bounce back on a road trip against UT-Rio Grande Valley on Thursday and at New Mexico State on Saturday.
