Coming off their first home loss of the season, the members of the BYU Cougars women's basketball team (18-6, 9-2)showed that they were anxious to get back out on the court and play by beating the Wyoming Cowgirls (16-7,7-4) 69 to 62 in Laramie, Wyoming Thursday night.BYU remains in first place in the Mountain West Conference with the win.
"This was a great team effort," said BYU Head Coach Jeff Judkins. " This was a huge win for our program."
The Cougars started strong from the opening tip taking a 14 to nine lead with 13:31 to play in the first half. BYU made two out of their first three three-pointers and continued to shoot well from all over the court during the first ten minutes of the first half, shooting 67 percent from the field.
Wyoming matched the Cougars intensity and made a run to cut the BYU lead down to three with the score 14 to 11 with 11:40 left in the first half. After the Cowgirl run, the Cougars expanded their lead on Wyoming by scoring 12 unanswered points, seven of them from Mallary Gillespie and the other three off of a three-point shot by Jennie Keele. The BYU scoring spurt gave the Cougars a 24-14 lead with 7:11 to play in the first half.
Wyoming countered BYU's hot shooting with a five-point unanswered scoring run that cut the Cougar lead to five, 26-21 with 4:10 left before halftime. The Cowgirls would only score one more point the rest of the half as BYU added ten more points, seven of them from Shawnee Slade and the other three by Gillespie to take a 36-22 lead into halftime. Mallary Gillespie would lead all scorers with 19 first half points.
To start off the second half, it was a different Cougar that would take offensive control of the game. Dani Wright scored the first six BYU points of the second half giving the Cougars a 42-29 advantage in the beginning three minutes of the second half. Gillespie would add another three points to increase the BYU lead to 16, 45 --29, with 15:54 left in the game.
With 10:54 left in the second half, the Cougars built a 21-point lead, 54-33. BYU continued to keep control of the game and maintained their lead over Wyoming at 19, 56-37, with 6:41 remaining in the second half. With 4:48 to go in the game, Gillespie made two free throws to bring the BYU lead to 19, 60-41.
After leading for most of the game, the Cougars loosened their grip on their 19 point lead in the closing minutes of the game and found Wyoming scoring nine unanswered points and cutting the lead to 10, 60-50, with 2:42 left in the contest. The Cowgirls continued to fight until the very end cutting the score to 66-59 for BYU with 32 seconds remaining. With 17 seconds left in the game, Wyoming was only down five points but BYU would increase their lead to seven off of two Gillespie free throws and the Cougars would win the game 69-62.
"We did an outstanding job of switching and helping each other out defensively," said Coach Judkins.
Gillespie finished with a career high 31 points.
"Mallary played her best game that I have ever seen her play," said Coach Judkins. "She came ready to play from the start."
The Cougars had three players score in double figures, Gillespie with 31 points, Dani Wright with 13 points and Shawnee Slade with 15. This is the ninth game of the year with three players scoring in double figures.
With the 14-point lead at halftime, BYU is now 14-1 when they are leading at the half.
Next up for the Cougars is another road game as they travel to Fort Collins to take on Colorado State, Saturday, February 17 at 2 p.m.
Official Basketball Box Score
BYU COUGARS vs Wyoming Cowgirls
2/15/07 7:00 p.m. at Laramie, Wyoming (Arena Auditorium)
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VISITORS: BYU COUGARS 18-6 (9-2 MWC)
TOT-FG 3-PT REBOUNDS
## Player Name FG-FGA FG-FGA FT-FTA OF DE TOT PF TP A TO BLK S MIN
35 JOHNSEN, Melinda.... f 1-5 1-3 0-1 0 7 7 4 3 4 2 0 1 34
52 RILEY, Lauren....... f 2-4 0-0 0-3 1 2 3 5 4 0 3 1 0 21
45 WRIGHT, Dani........ c 3-6 0-0 7-8 2 5 7 4 13 0 2 0 1 23
15 KEELE, Jennie....... g 1-5 1-5 0-0 0 3 3 4 3 4 2 0 1 36
30 GILLESPIE, Mallary.. g 10-14 5-7 6-7 1 4 5 2 31 2 2 0 0 40
05 CHEESMAN, Ashley.... 0-1 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 2 11
32 SLADE, Shawnee...... 7-10 1-4 0-1 0 0 0 3 15 1 4 0 1 31
54 KING, Cassie........ 0-2 0-1 0-0 0 2 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 4
TEAM................ 1 4 5
Totals.............. 24-47 8-20 13-20 5 27 32 22 69 11 16 1 6 200
TOTAL FG% 1st Half: 15-28 53.6% 2nd Half: 9-19 47.4% Game: 51.1% DEADB
3-Pt. FG% 1st Half: 6-13 46.2% 2nd Half: 2-7 28.6% Game: 40.0% REBS
F Throw % 1st Half: 0-2 0.0% 2nd Half: 13-18 72.2% Game: 65.0% 3
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HOME TEAM: Wyoming Cowgirls 16-7 (7-4 MWC)
TOT-FG 3-PT REBOUNDS
## Player Name FG-FGA FG-FGA FT-FTA OF DE TOT PF TP A TO BLK S MIN
05 ZAVECZ, Hanna....... f 3-12 0-1 5-7 5 5 10 1 11 4 3 0 2 32
25 PODZIEMSKA, Justyna. f 2-9 1-4 8-8 4 4 8 3 13 1 2 0 2 39
33 DISSEN, Elisabeth... c 1-2 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 1 2 0 2 0 0 12
02 BOLERJACK, Jodi..... g 6-15 3-10 5-5 0 2 2 3 20 0 1 1 0 40
12 SISK, Dominique..... g 1-6 0-2 4-6 2 2 4 3 6 4 1 0 1 30
20 VANDIVER, Aubrey.... 2-6 0-1 2-3 5 2 7 2 6 2 3 0 0 17
24 MCGUFFEY, Megan..... 2-10 0-4 0-2 1 4 5 3 4 0 3 0 1 30
TEAM................ 3 3 6
Totals.............. 17-60 4-22 24-31 20 22 42 16 62 11 15 1 6 200
TOTAL FG% 1st Half: 6-23 26.1% 2nd Half: 11-37 29.7% Game: 28.3% DEADB
3-Pt. FG% 1st Half: 1-10 10.0% 2nd Half: 3-12 25.0% Game: 18.2% REBS
F Throw % 1st Half: 9-13 69.2% 2nd Half: 15-18 83.3% Game: 77.4% 3
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Officials: Robert Strong, Mike Petty, Rick Ruybalid
Technical fouls: BYU COUGARS-WRIGHT, Dani. Wyoming Cowgirls-None.
Attendance: 2624
Score by Periods 1st 2nd Total
BYU COUGARS................... 36 33 - 69
Wyoming Cowgirls.............. 22 40 - 62