The University of Wyoming Cowgirls basketball team started the Mountain West Tournament with a 69-66 comeback win over New Mexico.
Sophomore Taylor Rusk led the Cowgirls in scoring with 21 points. Senior Natalie Baker had 14 points and junior Marta Gomez put up 13 points.
“I didn’t expect it all to happen in the third quarter,” head coach Joe Legerski said. “We talked about being more aggressive to the basket. I thought Taylor Rusk played exceptional tonight. She was the player out there that seemed very calm, got things going, and really went to the basket, had a career high in points, but more importantly showed tremendous leadership.”
During the first quarter, the Cowgirls were down 13-10 but not concerned since they were still right in the game.
The second quarter, however, would prove to be a struggle for the Cowgirls, only putting up 8 points opposed to New Mexico’s 20 points. Going into halftime the Cowgirls were down 33-18 on New Mexico.
“All season long this team competes for 40 minutes,” Legerski said. “One of the things when we were down 15 at half, there didn’t seem to be a great deal of panic in the locker room. What we talked about was we needed to become more aggressive, attack the basket. Once again, we just fell back to winning five minutes at a time. It’s a pretty big task against a team as talented as New Mexico and as well as they were playing.”
After halftime the Cowgirls came back with a vengeance, putting up 25 points in the third quarter and holding New Mexico to only nine points. Leaving the Cowgirls up 43-42 going into the fourth quarter.
Both teams fought hard in the fourth quarter with the Cowgirls putting up 26 points and New Mexico putting up 24, ending the game 69-66 Cowgirls.
“I thought the seniors took over,” Legerski added. “For Natalie, Liv, they knew they had to compete. They knew they wanted to continue to play. This is it for them. This time of year, you do fall upon your seniors. I thought they played extremely well. Down the stretch Natalie made two big free throws where we could always keep it at two possessions. We still had to make another play at the end. We had a hand up, and the ball fell for us.”
New Mexico was led by junior Jaisa Nunn with a game-high 20 points and 14 rebounds. Freshman Madi Washington recorded 12 points off the bench while senior Cherise Beynon had ten points and six rebounds.
The Cowgirls will advance on to the semifinals against Nevada on Wednesday, March 7 at 10 p.m. in Las Vegas.
