Box Score : Cumulative Stats

CORVALLIS, Oregon - The Utah Valley State women’s basketball team fought to the end but came up short in Corvallis to Oregon State, 57-43.

The Wolverines won the battle of the boards, 42-31, but couldn’t overcome 23-27 shooting from the free throw line by the Beavers. In comparison, Utah Valley shot just six free throws in the game, making four of them.

Oregon State kept trying to put Utah Valley away, but the Wolverines just wouldn’t give up.

“Give Utah Valley a lot of credit,” said Oregon State coach Judy Spoelstra. “They played hard.”

“I was really pleased with our effort,” said Utah Valley coach Cathy Nixon. “I thought our energy to the ball was good, we were on the floor all night long.”

Utah Valley was within three with less than seven minutes to go, but the Beavers closed the game on a 13-2 run.

Katie Wilson led the Wolverines with 15 points and eight rebounds, while Rebekah Fales also pulled down eight boards. Miriam Palkki scored 14 for Utah Valley and Courtney Lynn had her second straight game of seven points and six assists.

With the loss, the Wolverines fall to 2-17 on the year, while Oregon State improves to 6-16.

“At least we played a good solid game, compared the feeling tonight to the feeling Saturday at Northern Colorado…but we turned the ball over at inopportune times and we gave up a couple of runs that were too much to overcome.”

The Wolverines finished with 21 turnovers, while Oregon State had just seven.

The Beavers leading scorer, Shannon Howell, was held to just 10 points (eight below her average) and just 2-12 shooting. Kim Butler led Oregon State with 13 points and nine rebounds.

In the first half the Wolverines fell behind early 11-7. But after a Coach Nixon timeout, Utah Valley went on 7-0 run to take a three point lead, capped by a sweeping hook shot by Bistra Mihaylova.

The game was tied at 25 after Palkki put in two of her 10 first half points, but the Beavers finished the half on an 8-0 run to take a 33-25 lead into the locker room.

For the 1 st half, Oregon State shot only 29% from the field, but hit 13-13 from the free throw compared to just 1-2 for the Wolverines. Utah Valley out-rebounded the Beavers 23-16 in the half, but turned the ball over 10 times, to just once for Oregon State.

Up next the Wolverines travel to Jacksonville State in Alabama next Monday night a 6:00pm MST. Utah Valley State beat the Gamecocks 67-43 in November at the North Star Invitational in Fairbanks, Alaska.