Box Score
OREM, Utah – The HBU women's basketball team was outscored by 19 points in the second half as the Huskies lost to host Utah Valley, 82-58, Saturday evening at the UCCU Center.
Destini Texada led the Huskies with 12 points, while Joselyn Pugh scored 10 points and grabbed a team-high nine rebounds.
Four Wolverines ended up in double figures, led by both Kim Bell and Jenna Johnson with 21 points apiece. Sammie Jensen recorded a double-double of 15 points and 13 rebounds.
"UVU shot the ball well," said head coach Mary Gleason. "I'm disappointed after coming off a great win and a great team effort against NJIT to put this performance together. Everyday we're going to strive to be better. There were some parts of our game that were good at times, we had a lot of really nice looks around the basket, but we just didn't finish. I think the altitude affected us a little, but it will be great warmup for us, since we will be back here for the conference tournament. UVU plays so hard and I respect how hard they play and I hope that we can put together that kind of effort for 40 minutes.
"I think we were tired in the second half, because our decision-making got poorer and poorer and they outrebounded us."
Utah Valley got on the board first, as the Huskies turned the ball over and it resulted in a three-pointer by Abbie Beutler. Texada hit two baskets to give the Huskies a 4-3 lead with 17:08 left in the opening half. The Wolverines scored four unanswered to take a 7-4 lead, prompting an HBU timeout.
Texada hit her third basket to cut the deficit to two, 8-6, with 14:31 left in the first half. Mele Leasau followed that with a layup and the game was tied at eight, forcing Utah Valley to take a timeout.
Twelve seconds after the timeout, Whitney Jenkins hit a three-pointer to give the Wolverines the lead again, 11-8, with 13:34 remaining in the first half. The Huskies responded with a long ball by Brittany Barton and the game was knotted at 11, with 13:22 remaining.
The Huskies hit another jumper and took their first lead since 4-3, but the Wolverines tied the game on a Bell layup with 12:13 left in the opening half.
Utah Valley went on a 4-0 run until the media timeout, as the Wolverines led, 17-13, with 11:13 left. After the timeout, Megan Green hit a three-pointer to cut the deficit to one. Utah Valley went on a 4-0 run to lead, 21-16, before Pugh hit a three to stop the run, with 9:16 remaining.
Utah Valley's leading scorer, Sammie Jensen, got her second foul of the game with 8:54 left in the first half and had to take a seat on the bench. The Huskies used that opportunity to take its third lead of the half, as Pugh hit another three-pointer and the Huskies led, 22-21, with eight minutes remaining.
Jensen entered the game four minutes later and immediately made an impact, grabbing rebounds and helping the Wolverines increase their lead to 10 – their largest of the half – at 36-26 with 2:09 remaining in the opening half.
Jackson hit a three-pointer for the Huskies to cut the deficit to seven and Spriggs scored on a layup with 11 seconds remaining to end the half, as HBU was down five, 36-31.
The Huskies started things off in the second half with a jumper by Pugh, as the Huskies trailed by three, 36-33.
Utah Valley went on a 12-2 run to lead, 48-35, with 16:55 remaining in the second half, prompting HBU to take a timeout.
The Huskies came out of the timeout and used a 4-0 run to cut the deficit to single digits, 48-39, but Utah Valley used a 6-0 run to lead by 15, 54-39.
The reigning Great West Conference Player of the Week, Spriggs, got her fourth personal foul just eight minutes into the second half and had to sit on the bench. The Wolverines used that opportunity to push the ball into the paint and go on a 9-2 run to lead by 17, 65-48, with 7:54 left in the second half.
A layup by Ernesta Griciunaite at the 5:15-mark of the second half stopped a four-minute dry spell for the Huskies, as HBU found itself down 22, 72-50. The Huskies scored just eight points in the final five minutes of regulation.
HBU will host North Dakota and South Dakota on Mar. 3 and 5, respectively, in the final games of the regular season. Both games start at 5:15 pm.
