UVU drops fifth conference loss against UT Arlington
UVU’s conference struggles have continued after suffering a 72-64 loss to UT Arlington on Thursday night, UVU will be back in action on Sat.
The Utah Valley Women’s basketball team hosted in-conference foe UT Arlington and fell short 72-64 despite a late fourth quarter rally by the Wolverines.
Jenna Dick led Utah Valley coming off the bench with 15 points, which matches her season high. Tahlia White also finished in double figures with 14 points along with three rebounds.
Although both teams turned the ball over 22 times, UT Arlington outscored UVU 31-13 on points of turnovers which was the difference maker.
Early on in the first quarter Utah Valley got after it, knocking down their first three 3-point attempts, getting off to an early three point lead.
Utah Valley continued their struggles taking care of the ball leading to eight early turnovers.
Despite the first-quarter turnover struggles the Wolverines shot well which gave them a one-point lead at the end of the first quarter 16-15.
Neither team could pull away to start the second.
Through the first five minutes of the quarter UVU shot 0-6 as the Mustangs took an eight point lead.
Eleyana Tafisi was the first to score for the Wolverines in the second-quarter ending a five minute drought.
UTA’s Nya Threatt gave the Mustangs their biggest lead of the night as she grabbed her own offensive rebound and put up a sky-hook that rattled in, extending the lead 31-18.
Halle Nelson was able to cut the lead to just 10 with a tough finish at the rim and the foul for a three-point play.
With just six seconds to go in the half Taliyah Clark got a step on the defense to get a layup to fall giving UT Arlington an 11 point lead heading into the locker room.
To start the second half the Mustangs kept their large lead despite the Wolverines shooting well.
Nelson made another big shot for the Wolverines as she knocked down a three with four minutes to go cutting the lead to 10 once again.
In the fourth quarter UVU cut the lead to just six after Dick’s three-pointer but despite further efforts the Wolverines came up short as they dropped their fifth loss in conference play falling to 0-5.
This was the Mustangs sixth straight win and are the team to beat in the WAC.
The Wolverines will stay at home to host UT Rio Grande Valley Saturday Jan 13 at 2pm. This game can be streamed on ESPN+.
Kaleb Dyer is a Senior Staff writer for the UVU Review. Kaleb was born and raised in Draper, Utah and is majoring in communications with a minor in journalism. In his free time, Kaleb loves watching all sports but mostly college football and basketball. He loves writing for Utah Valley sports page and his dream is to one day become a sports broadcaster and/or journalist.