It was raining threes early in the Arena-Auditorium this Sunday as the Cowgirls led wire-to-wire in their first game of the WNIT against the UTSA Roadrunners after a first round bye.
“They were ready to roll on both ends,” head coach Heather Ezell said. “Not just on the offensive end, where I thought we were really locked in but defensive wise, we were making everything tough.”
The Roadrunners dominated Northern Colorado in the first round of the WNIT, beating them 80-62. They couldn’t replicate that same success against an upstart Cowgirls squad, who played with a lot of urgency in their domination of the Roadrunners.
The Cowgirls were hot early, as both Emily Mellema and Malene Pederson would strike from deep as the Cowgirls jumped out to an early 8-2 lead. McKinley Dickerson would pitch in as well, hitting her first three and a pair of layups as the Cowgirls’ lead would jump out to 12 at 20-8. The Cowgirls would close the half out on an 8-0 run, leading big after the first quarter.
The Cowgirls’ three point barrage would continue into the next quarter, with Maren McKenna hitting a contested corner three and Pederson hitting another three as the Cowgirls found themselves up 32-10. The Cowgirls’ hot shooting wouldn’t stop there either, as Ola Ustowska and Dickerson would be pure from distance as the Cowgirls kept piling onto their lead, making it 45-20 at the half.
The Cowgirls were 50% from both the field and from beyond the arc as they hit eight threes in the first half on their way to a 25 point halftime lead.
The Cowgirls shooting wouldn’t quite carry over to the next half, but they were able to find success in the paint as Allyson Fertig came alive with eight third quarter points. The Cowgirls wouldn’t hit a single three in the third quarter, but would maintain their lead at 64-41 after the third quarter.
The Roadrunners would make a run in the fourth quarter, outscoring the Cowgirls 8-2 early to cut the lead to 17. The Cowgirls struggled to score in the quarter and even had a couple of turnovers as the Roadrunners upped the defensive pressure, cutting the lead to 13 at 70-57 with 3:46 to go. The Cowgirls wouldn’t give away their lead in this one though, an unfortunate trend for the Cowgirls in their last two games of the season, as they’d close the game out late handling the Roadrunner pressure to win 80-64.
“Getting back to that winning feeling has been bottling up for a while,” Ezell said.
The Cowgirls hot shooting had cooled off in the second half, as they’d only hit one more three and ultimately shot 34.6% from deep. The Cowgirls shared the ball well in the game, assisting on 21 of their 28 made field goals while only having nine turnovers, most of which coming late in the game.
The Cowgirls were led by the offensive firepower of Pederson, who scored season-high 24 points which also matched her career high. She was paced by Fertig, who had a double-double with 17 points and 10 rebounds to complement her four blocks. Dickerson also had double-figures with 16 points.
The Cowgirls will continue their WNIT run against either Northern Arizona or South Dakota, who play Tuesday night.
