OREM, Utah — Tessa Chaney had a double-double to help lead Utah Valley to a 75-62 win over UT Rio Grande Valley on Saturday afternoon in the UCCU Center. Chaney finished with a career-high 18 points and 11 rebounds, Kylee Mabry matched her career-high 17 points, and Eleyana Tafisi scored a season-high 15 to help the Wolverines (6-9, 1-5) notch the win in WAC play.
 
"We've had spurts of the energy we need over the last few games but our challenge has been to do it as consistently as possible. We needed a win, desperately, and I'm proud of the total team effort we got today," said UVU head coach Dan Nielson. "I thought for the most part we executed our defensive gameplan. Credit to them, they hit some tough deep shots in the third, but in past games we've sort of backed off and gotten frustrated. Today we stayed right there and kept the lead and that was a big step of growth for us."
 
Chaney was 6-for-6 from the field and 6-for-7 from the free-throw line while Tafisi finished with six rebounds and five assists as UVU dished out 20 assists on the night. Ally Criddle finished with nine points, Tahlia White had eight points and a career-best six rebounds, and Liana Kaitu'u had five rebounds and four steals.
 
Arianna Sturdivant led the Vaqueros (2-13, 1-5) with 18 points while Charlotte O'Keefe finished with 14 points and 13 rebounds. Utah Valley went 26-for-57 (45.6%) overall from the field while UTRGV shot 30.4% (21-for-69).
 
After the Vaqueros opened the scoring with a three from Sturdivant, UVU ran off eight straight points to take an 8-3 lead. It was 11-7 when Mabry picked the pocket of Kade Hackerott and then scored on a feed from Kaitu'u to give the Wolverines a 13-7 lead after one.
 
The lead was five with just over three minutes to go until the break when Tafisi hit a jumper to start an 11-2 run to end the half. Chaney had a bucket and a free throw for a 3-point play during the run that put Utah Valley up 33-19 at the break. The Wolverines had 10 steals in the first half while Tafisi led the scoring column with nine, Mabry had eight, and Chaney scored six points and grabbed seven boards.
 
The Vaqueros kept pace in the third quarter, hitting five 3-pointers including a 50-foot banked shot at the buzzer by Jayda Holiman. Utah Valley stretched the lead to as much as 16 in the quarter, but Holiman's make trimmed the lead to 10, 56-46, after three.
 
Mabry began the fourth with back-to-back 3-point makes to push the lead back to 16, forcing a UTRGV timeout. The lead was 13 when O'Keefe scored five straight points to get the Vaqueros within single digits. Up eight, 66-58, with 3:25 to go, Chaney and Mabry combined for a 7-0 run—including Mabry's third three of the quarter—to put the game out of reach.
 
Utah Valley had a 40-20 advantage on points in the paint and also scored 18 points off of 18 UTRGV turnovers while limiting the Vaqueros to just eight points off of turnovers.
 
The Wolverines will wrap up their three-game homestand next Thursday against Grand Canyon at 6 p.m. MT in the UCCU Center.