CEDAR CITY, Utah - The Southern Utah women's basketball team kept their home undefeated streak alive Thursday night with a 72-65 overtime win over Idaho State.
"Really excited to be able to continue our undefeated streak at home. We put ourselves in a difficult spot to start and we didn't have the best first half, but the girls really bounced back in the second half, especially in the fourth quarter," head coach Tracy Sanders said. "Those were two teams that really play off transition and I feel like the tempo of the game slowed down and it was difficult for both teams to adjust to, but we started playing better defense and we have some confident people and they started to feed off each other and it provided us that spark that we needed to get back in it."
With 16 games still to play in the 2019-20 season, the Thunderbirds have matched their win total from 2018-19 with eight wins already this season.
Shalyn Fano led all scorers in the game with 22 points, was 4-for-6 from the free throw line, and was also the leading rebounder for the T-Birds with eight. Rebecca Cardenas put up 18 points and had five steals, two of which came in overtime. Harley Hansen contributed 13 points and five rebounds.
The Lady T-Birds forced the Bengals into 19 turnovers and scored 21 points off of those turnovers.
Both teams got off to a slow start on Thursday, scoring just 14 points combined in the first quarter. The Thunderbirds outshot the Bengals 27.3 percent to 23.5 percent, but trailed at the end of the opening quarter 6-8.
Both teams turned up the heat in the second quarter, shooting over 50 percent. ISU was able to maintain their lead however, outscoring the T-Birds 24-22 and would go into the break leading 32-28.
Southern Utah shot only 10 percent in the third quarter as the Bengals built up their lead, but were able to stay in the game thanks to clutch free throw shooting, going 9-for-12 from the charity stripe. With just 10 minutes to play, the Thunderbirds found themselves down 40-48.
The Bengals pushed their lead all the way to 12 with 7:24 to play, but then with 5:12 to go a layup from Cardenas launched a 15-3 run for the T-Birds that tied the game at 58-58 and set up their second overtime game of the season.
The Thunderbirds dominated in overtime, outscoring the Bengals 14-7 behind six points and two timely steals from Cardenas.
The Thunderbirds will be back in action next Thursday in Flagstaff against Northern Arizona.
Follow Us
Stay up to date during the 2019-20 Lady T-Bird Basketball season by following @SUUWBasketball on Twitter and Instagram and liking the Southern Utah Women's Basketball page on Facebook.
Tickets
Tickets for the Lady T-Birds' next home game on January 25 against Eastern Washington are available at tbirdtickets.com or the America First Event Center Ticket Office. Fans can also purchase a Women's Sports Pass for access to all 2019-20 regular season home games.
