OREM, Utah—The Utah Valley University women's basketball team lost a heartbreaker to Utah State 76-72 on Thursday night in the PE Building.

Utah Valley was paced by Deijah Blanks and Mariah Seals with 15 points apiece, and Rebecca MaWhinney had 14 points, 12 of which came from beyond the arc. Georgia Agnew had a team-high six rebounds and four assists on the night.
 
"We had every chance to win it, we missed enough free throws to have a comfortable lead and that's where I put the loss—also on the boards," head coach Cathy Nixon said. "We need to be a little better defensively, we need to be able to box out better and make some free throws and we will improve, it doesn't matter the opponent."
 
Utah Valley (6-4) fell behind the Aggies (4-4) in the second quarter, when they scored just seven points in the ten-minute period and trail Utah State 34-21 at the break.
 
The Aggies hit their second run of the night (8-1) in the third quarter to lead by as much as 15 (42-27). Back-to-back three-pointers from Rebecca MaWhinney and freshman Quynne Huggins cut the deficit to just eight at 42-34. The Aggies pulled ahead again to lead 52-38 with 16 seconds left in the third quarter, until MaWhinney hit her second trey of the night with three seconds remaining in the period to close the deficit to 11 at 52-41.
 
The Wolverines continued to claw away at the gap, with Deijah Blanks converting on a crucial three-point play with a layup and a free throw to close the gap to just 10 (54-44). The Aggies and Wolverines went back and forth until MaWhinney hit her third trey of the game to close the gap at 57-51 with 7:19 left to play.
 
Blanks knocked down a pair of free throws to cut the disadvantage to just four and then Karlee Norris laid it in to get within two at 57-55 (6:49 left to play). After two Aggie free throws, Norris laid it in again to get within two, at 59-57.
 
The game became a free-throw shooting contest down the stretch, with 12 of the next 18 points scored on the floor coming from the charity stripe for an Aggie lead 70-67 at two minutes remaining.
 
Aggie Tijana Djukic laid it in to lengthen the disadvantage 72-67, until MaWhinney knocked down her biggest three of the night to get within two (72-70) with 1:19 left in the contest.
 
With 36 seconds remaining, Rhaiah Spooner-Knight knocked down one-of-two free throws to get within one at 72-71. A costly Wolverine turnover with 27 seconds left ultimately led to Nakkasoglu knocking down one-of-two free throws for a 73-71 lead with 26 seconds left.  Agnew found herself at the charity stripe line with 3.4 seconds left, where she hit one-of-two free throws at 73-72. Utah Valley was left with no choice but to foul, and Katie Toole hit one-of-two free throws at the line. Victoria Price stole the ball on the UVU inbound play and laid it in in the final moments for a final score of 76-72.
 
UVU will hope to split their week, when the team travels to Ogden to see Weber State on Saturday in the Dee Events Center at 2 p.m. MT.