ROCHESTER, Mich. ? Dec. 8 ? Southern Utah women's basketball
dropped a 78-56 decision to Oakland University in the team's final leg
of a two-game road swing on Saturday night. Oakland used fresher legs,
playing in its first game of the week to improve to 5-2 and 1-0 in the
Summit League while the Thunderbirds fell to 1-7 and 0-2 in the
conference.
Oakland utilized its home court
advantage to build a lead of 18-9 midway through the half for its
greatest advantage during the first 20 minutes. The Thunderbirds
countered and slowly whittled the deficit to two (29-27) with 3:18
remaining on the clock.
However, the Golden
Grizzlies capitalized on four steals down the stretch, building a
12-point spread with 21 seconds remaining. SUU's Kaila Goff hit her
second 3-poing field goal of the half with seven seconds left on the
clock to put the score of 41-32 going into the halftime break.
Following
the intermission Southern Utah got to within six points on Goff's third
3-point field goal of the night, but it was the closest the ?Birds came
as Oakland built a double-digit lead and held on to the advantage for
the rest of the game.
“I think the biggest factor of
this game was the fact that this was our second game of the week and
the first for Oakland,” head coach Steve Hodson said of the team
fatigue. “We got tired, but I think we were able to play with them and
sometimes outplay them for 30 minutes tonight.
“Last year they blew us out up here, but this year we put a little bit of fear into them,” Hodson finished.
Goff
led all SUU scorers with 12 to set a new career high as Anne Westwood
collected a game-high 15 rebounds. Freshman Jamie Sagers also turned
in a new career high with eight points off the bench all in the second
half.
April Kidd turned in 13 points to lead the
Golden Grizzlies with Hanna Reising (12), Jessica Pike (12) and Melissa
Jeltema (11) also in double digits. Jeltema also led OU in rebounds
with 13.
Southern Utah will return back to the
friendly confines of the Centrum Arena for its next game when the
Thunderbirds host the University of Portland on Dec. 17. Tip-off for
the game is scheduled for 7:00 p.m.
Box Score
