LAS VEGAS — The No. 8-seeded UTRGV women’s basketball team drained 13 3-pointers to take down No. 9 Seattle 71-61 in the opening round of the Western Athletic Conference (WAC) Tournament on Tuesday at Mandalay Bay’s Michelob ULTRA Arena.
The Vaqueros advance to the second round for a matchup against No. 5 Abilene Christian at 2 p.m. Wednesday at Orleans Arena. The game can be seen on ESPN+ or internationally at WACSports.com/Watch.
“What a gutsy performance from our group. I really think we made the plays we needed to down the stretch and got some great defensive stops at the end. … We got contributions throughout the lineup and it was just a great win,” UTRGV head coach Lane Lord said.
The 13 3-pointers come on the heels of hitting 14 3’s during a win at Stephen F. Austin on Saturday.
“It’s pretty sweet,” Lord said. “Our motto right now is just ‘shoot it before we turn it over,’ so we had a season-low nine turnovers today, which I’m very proud of. We have great shooters in our program and I think sometimes when we slow it down we really struggle to get our offense going, so we’re taking an approach of if we’re open, we’re going to let it fly and we did that the last two games.”
Sophomore Sara Bershers led the Vaqueros (13-18) with 24 points while hitting five 3’s to go with five rebounds, four assists and two steals. Forward Taylor Muff scored 10 points with nine rebounds and four assists. Freshman Arianna Sturdivant scored 11 points while hitting three 3-pointers. Sophomore Halie Jones scored 10 points with nine rebounds and two steals. Sophomore Jena’ Williams finished with seven points and three assists.
Bree Calhoun led the Redhawks (11-19) with 17 points, five rebounds, six assists and three steals. Taliyah Clark scored 11 points with five rebounds.
