EDINBURG — The UTRGV women’s basketball team was in comeback mode from the midway point of the first quarter up until the final buzzer of its Western Athletic Conference (WAC) opener against New Mexico State.
The Vaqueros made it a one-point game during the fourth quarter, but didn’t have enough gas in the tank to complete the comeback, falling 67-59 to the Aggies on Thursday at the UTRGV Fieldhouse in Edinburg.
UTRGV falls to 6-6 overall and 0-1 in WAC play. New Mexico State improves to 6-7 and 1-0 in conference. The Vaqueros are back in action at 2 p.m. Saturday at the UTRGV Fieldhouse in Edinburg against Seattle (0-11, 0-1).
“I thought New Mexico State really out-physicaled us all night. They got a lot of offensive rebounds, second-chance points, and defensively they were really on lockdown the whole night,” UTRGV head coach Lane Lord said. “We struggled to really do much. All the credit goes to New Mexico State. Another slow start for us offensively, but I thought we played much better in the second half.”
The Aggies set the tone by applying pressure defensively and outscoring the Vaqueros 24-8 in points in the paint during the first half. That led to a 32-24 lead for New Mexico State at the break.
Sophomore forward Deborah Ogayemi scored all 17 of her points during the third and fourth quarters to help the Vaqueros cut into the lead during the second half. Sophomore guard Iyana Dorsey finished with a game-high 23 points to go with six rebounds and four assists. Junior guard Tiffany McGarity and freshman post Charlotte O’Keefe scored six points apiece.
New Mexico State’s Shania Harper, Molly Kaiser and Sylena Peterson all scored double figures for the Aggies.
The Vaqueros will look to bounce back as they host Seattle on Saturday to close out their WAC homestand. Seattle was defeated by Sam Houston 92-72 on Thursday during its conference opener.
“We got to get off to a better start. Only 11 points in the first quarter and only 13 in the second — we got to score the basketball, we got to get to the paint,” Lord said. “I think if you look inside today, it ended up 38-28, they beat us by 10 in the paint, but it was lopsided in the first half until we started getting the ball down to Deb (Ogayemi) and Charlotte (O’Keefe). We’ll be back. We’ll be fine.”