By Blake Moore

The U women’s basketball teamwas hoping to grab its first regular-season win Monday night as ithosted Big East contender GeorgetownHoyas and did just that.Poor shooting by both teams keptthe low-scoring first half close, untilLana Sitterud capped off an 8-0 runwith a three pointer to give Utah afour-point lead with 4:34 left in thehalf. The Utes would go onto keepthe lead the rest of the night, beatingthe Hoyas by a score of 64-53.Utah had key performances frommany players along with dominatingplay by junior Kim Smith, whorecorded her 12th career doubledoubleby scoring 10 points andclutching 13 rebounds. Utah hadfour players that scored in doubledigits and Deanne Hanchett alsochipped in with 8 points and 7 rebounds.Shona Thorburn led all scoreswith a game high 15 points and LanaSitterud followed with 13 points asshe went 2-2 from the perimeter.”We have a couple of kids thatcould go off for really big numbers,but as long as we are getting it doneas a team we will be successful,” Ucoach Elaine Elliott said.Utah shot only 30-percent fromthe field in the first half, scoringa total of 20 points. They rallied,however, in the second half by doublingtheir scoring output and shot58-percent from the field in thehalf.”Going into the post helped ourshots to begin to fall and it got ouroffense rolling in the second half,”said Elliott.Georgetown’s numbers, however,would not get any better in thesecond half, as the team averaged33.8-percent shooting for the entiregame and a paltry 50 percent fromthe charity stripe. The Hoyas wereled by Kieraah Marlow, Sarah Jenkins,and Mary Lisicky each scoring11 points. Marlow also led herteam with eight boards.Coach Elliott also touched on theimplications of this type of decisivevictory against a Big East Team.”This is a huge win for us againsta team from a conference that senteight total teams to the NCAA tournament,”Elliott said.”We need wins like this to showthe strength of the Mountain Westconference.”Next up on the schedule for theUtes is the Wahine Classic in Honolulu,Hawaii, which takes placeNov. 26-28.They return home to play UVSCand Washington on Dec. 2 and 4,[email protected]