The University of Wyoming women’s basketball team beat No. 1 in the Mountain West UNLV 69-56 at the Arena Auditorium in Laramie on Saturday afternoon.
This win will put the Cowgirls at No. 1 in the Mountain West conference with just a handful of games left before the playoffs.
The Cowgirls’ Liv Roberts scored 21 of their 69 points. Natalie Baker put up 11 points as well as Marleah Campbell. The Cowgirls made 12 3-pointers in the first half, putting them up 44-24 at halftime.
“I think we were just ready to come out and compete,” senior Liv Roberts said. “We knew that they were a good team, they’re number one in our conference, and that’s a good game to get up for.”
Going into the second half the Cowgirls had a 20-point lead and were starting to slow down their scoring. This allowed UNLV to try and claw their way back into the game.
“Our mindset was that we needed to pick it up, get rebounds, and stop fouling,” senior Marleah Campbell said. “We tried to settle down. We had been in this position before several times throughout the year and knew that we really needed to buckle down, get stops and take advantage on offense.”
And that’s exactly what the Cowgirls’ did, putting up 18 points in the third quarter over UNLV’s 15 points, leaving the game at 62-39 going into the fourth quarter.
“I gained a lot of confidence at Utah State and I’ve been working on carrying that over into other games,” senior Natalie Baker said. Baker made three of the Cowgirls’ 3-pointers and went 3 of 5 from 3-point range.
UNLV tried to make a staggering comeback in the fourth quarter, scoring 17 points as opposed to the Cowgirls’ 7 points. But it was not enough and the Cowgirls were able to hold out for a 69 – 56 victory over UNLV.
The Cowgirls only have six regular season games left and currently sit at No. 1 in the Mountain West.
“It’s awesome to be in first place and we just want to keep that going,” Roberts said. “We don’t want to lose any more games and I think we can battle it out for first place for the rest of the season.”
The Cowgirls’ next home game is this Wednesday, Feb. 14 at 6:30 p.m. against San Diego State University.
