"It was an exciting
game – it was a good game,” said head coach Yvonne Sanchez.
”Probably from a
fan standpoint--except for the end--it was a good game."
After trailing
29-26 at
halftime, New Mexico (7-15, 1-7) took a 38-37 lead with 13:26
left in the
second half after senior Porche Torrance hit a pair of free
throws. After a
trey by BSU’s Lauren Lenhardt, UNM tied the game at 40-40 on a
Jourdan Erskine
lay up but the Lady Broncos reeled off five straight points and
eventually
built the lead to 63-48 with just over four minutes left in the
game.
The Lobos
rallied, going on
a 15-0 run midway through the half and cut the lead to 68-64 on
a lay-up by
Torrance with 25 seconds left in the game but would get no
closer.
“It seemed like
they just
kept hitting all their shots but, you know, we said 'we have
plenty of time
still, we can still make a comeback,' and that's we did,” said
junior Caroline Durbin. “We just tried to make every possession count."
Durbin led all
scorers with
27 points, hitting 6-of-6 on free throws and going 9-of-17 from
the field and
hitting 3-of-4 three pointers in the loss. Torrance scored 15
points and pulled
in 8 rebounds and had four assists. Jayme Jackson added four
points and 2
assists.
New Mexico was
undone by 20
turnovers as Boise St. (12-11, 3-5) outscored UNM 15-10 on
points off
turnovers.
“The formula is
really
taking care of the ball,” said Sanchez. “Again, we did a lot of
good things,
but 20 turnovers is just not going to cut it. We had 10 in the
first half and
they didn't even really press us in the first half. It was
getting the ball up,
down to the front court, and then getting a travel, or-I don't
know if we got
any illegal screens or not, those are turnovers, but I just put
them aside. I
know those are going to happen in the offense that we run, but
just needless
travels, needless throwing the ball away… we've got to correct
that.”
The two teams
battled back
and forth earl on before Boise St. managed a 7-0 run to take an
18-13 with just
over six minutes left in the first half. UNM tied the game 22-22
on a trey by
Durbin at the 2:55 mark of the first half but Boise responded
with another 5-0
run. UNM cut the lead to 29-26 on a lay-up by forward Chinyere
Nnaji with four
seconds left in the half.
it and we've got to keep working on it,”
continued Sanchez.
“People are going to press us.”
The Broncos
were led by
Nicole Brady, who scored 19 points and Lenhardt, who added 16
points – all in
the second half.
“"You know as a
team we
are frustrated,” said Torrance. “We started off preseason pretty
well with some
wins and then conference came and the [losing] streak just kept
going and
going. We finally thought that we kind of got back on track
against Air Force,
but you're not always going to have a winning season. We just
have to keep our
confidence up and play as a team, and every time we go out on
the court we just
have to give our all and keep playing.
“We still have
Vegas, we've
got conference tournament to play so, we can't just give up now
and we're not
going to give up now,” said Torrance.
The Lobo women
have a week
off before their next game at Wyoming, next Saturday afternoon.
Sanchez said
the team is stating positive despite of the loss.
“We have a set
back today,
but we'll go to Wyoming and have a week off. I think it's going
to be good for
the players to have a couple of days off this week,” said
Sanchez. “I think
it's going to be good for them… they’re still pretty nipped and
beat up, and
they're going to be the entire season. And by no means is that
any excuse. But
it will be good for them to get a couple of days off. We'll work
on Wyoming on
Monday and Tuesday, and we'll have Wednesday off and we're going
to take
tomorrow off as well. We'll see if we can't go get a win in
Laramie."