EDINBURG — The UTRGV women’s basketball team is set to take center stage at Bert Ogden Arena with a Western Athletic Conference game against Texas at Arlington at 6:30 p.m. today in Edinburg.
It’ll be the first time the UTRGV women’s basketball team will play its own game at Bert Ogden Arena without a doubleheader also featuring the men’s basketball team. It’s also the 50-year anniversary of Title IX, a federal civil rights law passed in 1972 prohibiting sex discrimination in educational and athletic programs.
Title IX requires that women and men be provided equitable opportunity to participate in sports, that female and male student-athletes receive athletic scholarship dollars proportional to their participation, and requires the equal treatment of female and male student-athletes in the provisions of equipment and supplies, scheduling of games and practice times, travel and daily allowance, access to tutoring, coaching, locker rooms, practice and competitive facilities, medical training facilities and services, housing and dining facilities and services, publicity and promotions, support services and recruitment of student-athletes, according to the NCAA.
Tickets for UTRGV-UT Arlington can be purchased at BertOgdenArena.com.
“We’re excited to be back at Bert Ogden Arena,” UTRGV head coach Lane Lord said. “We call it our second home, and we love to play here, love the environment, it gets you that big-time atmosphere. We hope we can get a lot of people out to watch us play.”
UTRGV (7-9, 1-4) will look to right the ship against UT Arlington (8-10, 2-4), a team the Vaqueros previously defeated 83-73 on Jan. 4 in Arlington. Sophomore guard Iyana Dorsey scored a game-high 31 points in the first matchup against the Mavericks. Junior guard Mele Kailahi finished with 22 points and Deborah Ogayemi added 12 in the UTRGV win.
The Vaqueros nearly delivered an upset in their last outing against Grand Canyon, leading a top-three team in the conference for three quarters before squandering the lead during the fourth. Now, the Vaqueros have a chance to return to the win column against the Mavericks.
“I think our team is about ready to turn the corner,” Lord said. “We’ve been in every game, had a chance to win all five conference games. We’ve come up a little short on a few of them, but I like the direction our team’s going. I think we have the talent to continue to get better and play our best basketball here at the end of the season.”
