Cedar City, Utah - The Thunderbird women's basketball team fell in a close contest to UC Irvine Thursday night inside the Centrum Arena 63–58. Both teams were extremely close down the stretch of the contest but the Anteaters were able to pull away from the Thunderbirds in the end.  

SUU head coach Chris Boettcher said the team had some ups and downs Thursday night, but he's seeing the improvements from his team that he wants to see.

“As long as we learn and take away from it, our ultimate goal is to get the experience and progress through this preseason to be competitive at the highest level when conference rolls around,” he said.

The Thunderbirds started the first half off strong, and built a 16–9 lead, but the Anteaters responded with a 6–1 run to make the score 17–15 in favor of the Thunderbirds after 10 minutes.

UCI started the second half on a 10–1 run, but SUU was quick to respond to pull themselves within two before halftime, but the Anteaters held a 28–26 advantage. SUU had a long stretch without a field goal in the second quarter, which SUU's Emma Weinreich said is something they can learn from.

“We just needed to start doing the little things,” she said. “We were up and we were down and we just needed to continue on our roll and every time we get up or down we start to get a little frazzled, but it will come with experience. We're a young team and we'll get it.”

In the third quarter the Thunderbirds hit a groove and held the lead for the majority of the period and had a 44–42 advantage after three.  

With 22 seconds left in the fourth quarter Weinreich pulled the Thunderbirds within two after a tight quarter. The T-Birds sent UCI to the line on their next possession and the second free throw was missed, however the Thunderbirds could not corral the rebound leading to another opportunity and the Anteaters put the game away 63–58

SUU forward Jessica Richardson led the Lady T-Birds in scoring with 15 points, and finished with a double-double pulling in 11 rebounds. Seven of those rebounds came on the offensive end. Weinreich had a big night for SUU as well finishing with 14 points.

Richardson said one of the biggest improvements she's seen in the squad is their ability to play together.

“It started at UVU,” she said. “We kind of figured out how to start playing together and the intensity we need to play at so we kind of tried to carry that over from UVU into this game and I think we did a pretty good job with that.”