Dec. 16, 2006
Box Score
GALLERY
Orem, Utah - Utah Valley State's school record seven-game winning streak came to an end on Saturday as BYU used its size to top the Wolverines 71-57.
Utah Valley center Robyn Fairbanks led all scorers with 19 points while BYU had four players in double figures led by 14 from Mallary Gillespie. Dani Wright had a double double with 12 points and 11 rebounds.
The Cougars (8-3) won the rebounding battle by a lopsided 46-26 and also out-scored UV in the paint, 42-22.
The Wolverines (9-2) forced 22 BYU turnovers, but shot just 34.5% from the floor compared to 48.2% by BYU. The 57 points scored by Utah Valley was a season low and 21 points below their season average.
"They (BYU) came in here and did what they needed to do," said UV head coach Cathy Nixon. "My young kids maybe weren't quite as sharp as they needed to be, but BYU's a great team and if we're measuring ourselves against them I don't think it's anything for us to be ashamed about."
"They have post play that we haven't seen before and they killed us in rebounding and I think that transfers over," said Fairbanks. "We didn't play the best we could. But I don't want to take anything away from them...they we're the better team."
The Wolverines struggled offensively out of the gate, falling behind 9-0 before Fairbanks got the team on the board at the 14:46 mark of the first half.
From there it was an uphill battle. Utah Valley trimmed the lead to three at 19-16 on a three-pointer from Hollie Beaman but the Cougars answered back with a 14-4 run to take a 13 point lead.
After entering the half down 35-26, the Wolverines allowed BYU to score the first five points of the second half to build a 14 lead at 40-26.
The lead reached as much as 20 for the Cougars on a couple of occasions, but the Wolverines used a full court press to make a mini run, trimming the lead to 13 with 5:09 on free throws by Susie Cornejo.
Utah Valley would get no closer though and dropped to 0-2 all-time against its neighbor to the East.
Sandy Marvin had 10 points and a team-high five rebounds while Julie McMurray had eight points off the bench for the Wolverines. Shawnee Slade and Lauren Riley were the other BYU players in double figures with 13 points each. Slade scored all 13 of her points in the first half.
The Wolverines finished up the in-state schedule with a respectable 3-2 record, with losses to Utah and BYU and wins over Utah State, Southern Utah and Weber State.
UV will wrap up its pre-Christmas schedule with 2005-06 Big West Tournament Champion UC Riverside on Monday at 3:05 and Montana State Wednesday at 2:05.
