by Nicholas Huenefeld
ARLINGTON, Texas — The UT Arlington women’s basketball team (9-13, 3-7 WAC) was defeated 87-70 by Utah Tech (14-8, 6-5 WAC) inside the College Park Center on Saturday afternoon as the visiting Trailblazers shot a blistering 16-of-27 (.593) from long distance.
“We have to continue to fight,” UT Arlington head coach Shereka Wright said. “I’m not going to have self-pity, and our players won’t either. We have a lot more basketball to go. What I love is we have a lot of young players who are fighting through and getting a lot of game time experience. It’s about the experience. It’s about the growing and learning from each game.”
UT Arlington, which was already without two starters in Jireh Washington and De’Sha Benjamin, lost Shyia Smith due to injury after she tallied five assists over seven minutes. She was making her 36th-consecutive start, and she is the only Lady Mav to start every game this year.
UT Arlington was led in scoring by Starr Jacobs, who had a team-best 16 points along with game-highs in rebounds (8) and steals (6) while also adding three assists. Kayla White added 15 points as she tallied her 14th double-digit scoring performance over the past 16 games. Meanwhile, the freshmen duo of Alexsyah Goudeau (15) and Nya Threatt (12) established season-highs. In fact, Goudeau also had five rebounds, four assists and two steals.
In addition to those performances, Taleyah Jones added eight points and a season-high six rebounds while matching her season-high in assists with four. Nicole Sanfilippo contributed three assists to triple her season total while adding two points, two rebounds and a block in a season-best 16 minutes.
Despite the Lady Mavs producing the game’s first 10 points, Utah Tech responded with 21 points over the final eight minutes of the opening quarter to take a four-point lead. The Trailblazers stretched their advantage to as many as 14 with 3:24 left in the half, but UT Arlington went on a 6-0 run to pull back within single-digits at the break.
Utah Tech, however, stretched an 11-point lead to a 67-47 advantage entering the final 10 minutes behind a 5-of-6 performance from long distance in the third quarter. Eventually, they led by as many as 28 with 5:52 left in the fourth.
The Trailblazers were paced by Emily Isaacson and Averi Papa, who each had 17 points. Maggie McCord (16), Amber Kartchner (13) and Breaunna Gillen (12) also produced double-digits while Kartchner had nine assists and McCord had eight rebounds. They not only snapped a two-game losing streak, but they established a new season-best 16 3-pointers against a Division I opponent this year. Their 3-point total and percentage are also new opponent season-bests against UT Arlington.
