EDINBURG — The UTRGV women’s basketball team overcame a 12-point second-half deficit to take down Seattle U 68-60 in a Western Athletic Conference matchup Thursday at the UTRGV Fieldhouse.
The win sends the Vaqueros to 10-15 overall and 6-6 in WAC competition. Seattle drops to 2-10 in conference play.
“I’m glad there’s two halves and four quarters,” UTRGV head coach Lane Lord said. “We really struggled to score the first half and defensively, their first six baskets were layups. The second half, we looked really good. It was fun to watch and scoring 30 points in the (third) quarter was awesome.”
The Vaqueros trailed by 12 at the break but outscored Seattle 19-12 during the third quarter and 30-17 during the fourth.
Sara Bershers sparked a Vaqueros run with the team in comeback mode. She knocked down a 3-pointer to close the third quarter, then scored 10 straight points for UTRGV to open the fourth quarter to take a 46-43 lead with eight minutes left in the contest. The lead was UTRGV’s first of the game.
Bershers finished with a game-high 20 points, all of which came during the second half.
“I kind of felt the energy shift coming out of halftime. We got on a little bit of a run and once you get rolling, you get rolling and that’s what we did,” Bershers said. UTRGV scored “19 (points) in the third and 30 in the fourth — that’s pretty good compared to the first half. We were glad we could get rolling in the second half.”
Forward Taylor Muff added 17 points, KaCee Kyle scored 14 and guard Halie Jones had 15 points, eight rebounds and five steals. Jones’ takeaways came at key moments during UTRGV’s comeback effort.
“I think we really pride ourselves on defense and that’s kind of what has been consistent for us this year. We realized the first half wasn’t the game we wanted to play, so just making that transition, it was a trust thing — trusting ourselves and trusting our defense,” Muff said.
The Vaqueros shot 1 of 14 from 3-point range during the first half and flipped a switch to knock down 9 of 18 from deep.
Bree Calhoun led Seattle with a team-high 14 points.
UTRGV will look for its third win in a row against California Baptist (16-5, 7-3) at noon Saturday at the UTRGV Fieldhouse in Edinburg.
