When the Utah and Air Force women’s basketball teams met up last Saturday, neither was incredibly sharp offensively in the opening half.
The Utes went scoreless for 6:08, while the Falcons endured a stretch of 5:33 without a point.
The difference?
In Utah’s cold period, Air Force scored just 5 points; conversely, when AFA went quiet, the U ran off 14 straight to put the game out of reach.
The end result was a 71-53 Utah victory in the team’s final home contest of the year, and the last ever game at the Huntsman Center for seniors Lauren Beckman, Erin Gibbons, Lindsay Herbert and Katherine McColl.
“It’s just nice to get a few wins to close out our home season,” said U coach Elaine Elliott, whose team won its third straight and improved to 13-10 overall, 6-5 MWC. “I’m happy for the kids?this feels really good.”
After starting out slowly, totaling just 5 points in the game’s first seven and a half minutes, but falling behind just 8-5, the Utes turned things on as the half progressed, capitalizing on the Academy’s misfires when trailing 15-10 and scoring 23 of the half’s final 27 points to take a 33-19 lead at halftime.
The hot streak continued after the break, as the Utes reeled off the first 12 points of the half in just 2:42, taking a 45-21 advantage.
The seniors did most of the damage in their home finale. Herbert had a team-high 18 points, Gibbons added 13 and Beckman contributed 10 points and 9 rebounds, as Utah led by as many as 31.
“It was special?I’m glad they played well,” Elliott said. “They’ve contributed so much. They’ll all be missed.”
For the Falcons, after shooting just 24.1 percent in the first 20 minutes, then starting slowly in the latter stanza, only a sublime effort from sophomore reserve Shawna Neff kept things interesting.
After playing just three minutes in the first half and going 0-for-2 from the field, Neff went supernova in the second?hitting 7-of-10 shots and scoring 22 points in 13 minutes of action.
Amazingly, 20 of those came in the game’s last eight minutes. After scoring the Falcons’ first bucket of the second half, with 17:02 to go, she didn’t get another chance until nearly nine minutes later, when she canned a trey with 8:15 remaining, and scored 20 of her team’s final 24 points.
The performance left Elliott wondering if the outcome might have been different had Neff seen more action and more touches.
“We were cruising right along and then Neff goes unconscious?you have to give her credit for keeping them in it,” Elliott said.
It was too little too late, though, as the Falcons could get no closer than 16, and they dropped to 4-19 overall, and remained winless in conference play, sagging to 0-10 versus MWC opponents.
With three games remaining in Utah’s regular season, the team is starting to feel good about its chances of playing the spoiler to someone else’s title aspirations or conference tournament championship hopes.
“We’re capable. We think we’re dangerous to other teams,” Elliott said. “Really, I just need [the players] to stay focused, to keep working hard. We’ve checked in and checked out at times, but we’ve always been in the games. Sometimes we just lose focus, but if we can stay away from that trap, we’ll do well.”