CEDAR CITY, Utah - The Southern Utah women's basketball team beat the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley for the second time in as many days Monday night, by a score of 92-64.
"Super proud of our execution tonight. We weren't very pleased with our performance yesterday, but I feel like we came out and set the tempo from the beginning," head coach Tracy Sanders said. "Obviously they weren't hitting shots and we shot the ball pretty well tonight which helps too, but I think overall we did a good job of playing as a team and making each other better."
Reigning Big Sky Player of the Week Liz Graves was once again the leading scorer for the T-Birds, leading all scorers with 18 points. She was 6-for-7 from the floor and 4-for-5 from the three-point line. The senior also pulled down seven rebounds and did it all in just 19 minutes of play.
Four other Thunderbirds hit double-digits in the victory as Madelyn Eaton and Kinsley Barrington both scored 12 points and Cherita Daugherty and Darri Frandsen both had 11. Daugherty dished out seven assists while Daylani Ballena had six.
As a team, the Thunderbirds shot a whopping 63.0 percent (34-for-54) from the floor, the fifth highest single game field goal percentage in the history of the program. They also outrebounded the Vaqueros 38-20 and their bench outscored the UTRGV bench 45-26.
It was all Thunderbirds in this one, picking up right where they left off in the fourth quarter of Sunday's game. Less than seven minutes into the game, they had built up a 10-point lead over the Vaqueros and just kept pouring it on. Southern Utah put up 29 points in the first quarter and 25 in the second behind a 67.7 first half shooting percentage. They would go into the halftime break with a 54-33 lead.
They continued to add on to their lead in the second half. With 2:50 to go in the quarter, a steal from Daugherty resulted in an easy layup for Eaton to push the SUU lead to 27. Their biggest lead of the night came in the fourth quarter as Lizzy Williamson drew a shooting foul and knocked down both free throws to make it 90-59.
The Lady T-Birds will turn their attention back to Big Sky play this week as they host Weber State on Thursday night before traveling to Ogden on Saturday.
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