LAS VEGAS, Nev. – Senior guards Mariah Seals and Taylor Christensen have guided the Utah Valley women's basketball program to new heights during their four years wearing the green and white.
 
The Wolverines' (11-19, 5-10 WAC) backcourt leaders continued to lead their squad until the final buzzer in UVU's 72-56 WAC Tournament quarterfinal defeat to Grand Canyon (16-10, 10-5 WAC) Saturday afternoon inside the Orleans Arena. 
 
Seals and Christensen, who combined for 26 points, scored 13 of their squad's final 20 points to carry the program one last time. The Wolverines' senior leaders, Christensen tallied a team-high 14 points with a career-high matching 12 rebounds and Seals paired her 12 points with four assists.
 
Christensen, the Wolverines' leading scorer for the second straight season with 14.4 points per game entering the week, reflected on the experience of leaving her mark on the program through helping her young group of teammates over the last two years.
 
"We were super young last year, with a lot of freshmen and sophomores coming in, so It's been really fun being the older group as juniors and seniors leading our younger teams," said Christensen.
 
Outside of just leading their squad in points this season, Seals mentioned the ways the senior duo has provided leadership to the program by helping their teammates improve their on-court abilities.
 
"I think it's been fun as well. But I think the most important part is leaving them with something that can help them as they continue their careers. Each and every day in practice we tried to build them up with little things that they could do to fix and improve their game," she said.
 
Seals and Christensen leave behind a legacy that included the program's first pair of WAC Tournament victories in the 2015-16 and 2016-17 seasons. They've also shared moments as All-WAC second team selections, with Seals earning the honor as a sophomore and senior and Christensen in her junior season, and becoming 1,000-point scorers in their last two years together.
 
As part of their final scoring opportunities over the final two quarters, Christensen and Seals guided an 11-4 run to cut UVU's 13-point deficit in half with 2:02 left in the third quarter. After grabbing two of her four offensive boards in the game, Christensen capped the burst with two free throws to cut the deifict to seven at 41-35.
 
Prior to Christensen's free throws, Seals started the run with a pull-up jumper just inside the arc and then converting a driving layup to give her four points in a scoring spurt that lasted five minutes, 37 seconds.
 
"It came down to some lapses defensively with that first quarter giving up five three-pointers," said Utah Valley head coach Cathy Nixon. "Grand Canyon's a good team that shootss the ball well and has multiple weapons that were difficult for us to contain. But I'm proud of the way the girls didn't give up until the very last possession."
 
In spite of the fight the Wolverines put up, however, the Antelopes nailed five of their eight threes on the day in the contests' first 10 minutes to force the Wolverines to fight back from deficits throughout the day. During the hot three-point shooting in the first quarter, each team combined to go a perfect 7-of-7 from beyond the arc to start the contest, with the Wolverines draining four and GCU three during that span.
 
Adding to her two-year teammates' scoring success versus GCU, junior guard Britta Spencer rounded out a double-digit scoring trio for UVU with 12 points of her own. Spencer finished the afternoon with four of the Wolverines' six three-pointers on an efficient 4-of-6 shooting clip from downtown.
 
Spencer led an 8-2 Wolverine charge in the first quarter by nailing her second three-point field goal that helped the squad come to within a point, 17-16, of the 'Lopes with 2:07 to go in the opening frame.
 
The Wolverines' sideline leader in Seals' and Christensen's time at UVU, Nixon echoed the impact these senior have had on her squad's progress as leaders in the locker room.
 
"These two have just been warriors and have united their teams together more than any team I've had in a long time. When you see what these two have been able to accomplish in their careers at UVU, not only in the record books, they've both left their print on many areas of our program," Nixon said.
 
A four-year starter, Seals caps her career as the Wolverines' program leader in career starts, games played, minutes and in three-pointers made (200) and third on the school's career assists (454) and scoring (1,513) charts. Meanwhile, Christensen finalizes her career as the second all-time leader in steals (194) at UVU and sixth all-time in scoring (1,084) and rebounds (484).
 
Utah Valley will return 11 players heading into a new era, led by this year's sophomores in WAC All-Newcomer pick Alexis Cortez and the squad's third leading scorer Jordan Holland.