Box Score CEDAR CITY, Utah - The Thunderbird women's basketball team picked up its first win of the season with a 89-76 win over the Antelope Valley Pioneers.
Head coach Chris Boettcher was pleased with the way his team was able to open the season saying, “I'm really excited about the effort all night. Especially how they were able to fight through in the second half and build a lead and maintain that lead. We still had too many turnovers, we still had some early-in-the-season mistakes, but we executed and we hit shots when we needed to. I'm proud of the way they fought back.”
The Thunderbirds jumped out in front of the Pioneers early as they were able to score six unanswered points in the first quarter. It wouldn't be long before the Pioneers began to answer back with what would turn out to be a pretty consistent theme for them throughout the night: three-point attempts. UAV would make three of their next four three-point attempts to take a brief 9-8 lead. The lead would change hands two more times before the Thunderbirds were able to establish a 25-19 lead at the end of the first.
The T-Birds were able to hold that lead throughout the second quarter building it to as a high as 16 points at one point. Sophomore Darri Frandsen looked to be on her way to a big night as she ended the first half with nine points and five rebounds. Freshman Skylee Doman had three steals in her 12 minutes of play in the first half. The Pioneers were able to cut the Thunderbird lead down to five by the end of the first half with a large part of the damage coming from behind the three-point line. They had already made nine of a whopping 25 attempts by the end of the first half.
The Pioneers opened up the second half with an 11-2 run in the first three minutes to take a four-point lead over the Thunderbirds. The game would become tied four times after that run until a Darri Frandsen layup was able to give the Thunderbirds enough spark to maintain their lead throughout the rest of the quarter. Frandsen caught fire in the third quarter putting up 10 points in 10 minutes.
The Thunderbirds were finally able to pull away in the fourth quarter with the help of a 16-2 scoring run to put them up 87-65 with five minutes left to play. The last five minutes only saw one more Thunderbird basket, but there just wasn't enough time left for the Pioneers to climb their way back and the game ended in a 89-76 win for the T-Birds.
Two Thunderbirds were able to finish the night with double-doubles. Frandsen led the way with 24 points and 12 rebounds and senior Jessica Richardson was right behind her with 13 points and 11 rebounds of her own. The Thunderbirds shot 18-25 from the free throw line and had 12 steals as a team. The Pioneers finished the night with an astonishing 51 three-point attempts, 25 coming in the first half and 26 in the second.
The Thunderbirds will hit the road next week for a game against CSU Bakersfield on Tuesday November 15th.
To stay up to date during the games and throughout the 2016-17 season follow @SUUWBasketball on Twitter and Instagram and like the SUU Women's Basketball page on Facebook.
