Feb. 6, 2006

Box Score |  Photo Gallery

The University of Texas-Pan American women's basketball team couldn't overcome an early 13-0 run by the Northern Colorado Bears on Monday (Feb. 6) and lost 57-48.

UTPA jumped out too a quick 6-0 lead in the first two minutes of the game thanks to three buckets from senior Joanna Fuentes (McAllen, TX/McAllen H.S.). The Bears got things going when Whitley Cox connected on a jumper with 16:50 on the clock. Northern Colorado poured in 13 straight points to take a seven point advantage over the Lady Broncs. UTPA never recovered from the Bears' run and trailed the rest of the game.

At halftime, UNC held a 25-15 lead over UTPA. The Bears built their lead to as many as 17 points in the first part of the second half but the Lady Broncs kept fighting to get back in the game but Northern Colorado seemed to always have an answer, keeping their lead in double-digits. The Lady Broncs finally got the lead to single-digits on a Devin Reed (Indianapolis, IN/Cowley County C.C.) three-pointer, but it was too late to make a serious run.

The Lady Broncs turned the ball over 12 times in the first half and only shot 27 percent on 6-22 shooting. UTPA only committed five turnovers in the second half, giving them a total of 17 for the game.

"We have no one to blame but ourselves for this loss. I thought we played a quality second half but we built too big a hole against a quality team. I thought we had a different mental approach in the first half compared to the second half and we just didn't take care of the ball in the first half," said head coach DeAnn Craft.

The Lady Broncs were led in scoring by Dominique Montague (Gilbert, AZ/Central Arizona College) who finished with nine points on 3-6 shooting, 3-5 from behind the three-point arc. Newcomer Danielle Kostacky (Clearwater, FL/Clearwater H.S.) scored a career-high six points on 3-5 shooting while playing a career-high 16 minutes.

Fuentes, starting her third straight game after not starting a single game in her previous three seasons, had a career night as well. The Lady Bronc senior connected on 3-5 shooting for six points while also finishing with two steals in 20 minutes of play.

"Joanna epitomizes what is great about college sports. She has spent so much time working on her game and improving that nobody sees. She came in as a walk-on and has developed to being a bona fide starter," added Craft.

MaHogany Daniel (Corpus Christi, TX/Mary Carroll H.S.) was big on the rebounds for the Lady Broncs with 13, seven of which were on the offensive end. Coming in to the game, Daniel led the Lady Broncs in rebounding, with 52 more than that next closest player. The forward finished the night with five points, five assists, one block and two steals.

"MaHogany was great on the boards tonight. I thought she was too passive offensively. She can eat people up from high post. When she has seven offensive rebounds, she needs to be able to turn those into more points."

As a team, UTPA shot 41 percent from the field compared to 49 percent by the Bears. The Lady Broncs out-rebounded UNC 27-24 and 10-6 on offensive rebounds.

The loss drops the Lady Broncs record to 5-17 while the Bears improve to 12-9.

UTPA will return to the court on Saturday (Feb. 11) to take on the South Dakota State Jackrabbits in the UTPA Fieldhouse at 7:00 p.m.

UTPA Sports Information