LOS ANGELES, Calif. – The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) Vaqueros women's basketball team opened its west coast trip with an 80-43 loss to the University of Southern California (USC) on Wednesday at the Galen Center.
 
In her first game of the season, redshirt sophomore Ashlei Lopezled the Vaqueros with 14 points and three steals while redshirt juniorAmara Graham chipped in 10 points. 
 
USC's Alissa Pililed all scorers with 23 points while grabbing 10 rebounds. Angel Jackson added 16 points and seven rebounds with Kayla Overbeck and Desiree Caldwelladding nine points each.
 
The Vaqueros hung in there with USC through the first quarter as Lopez scored seven of her 14 points. Lopez got the Vaqueros on the board with a jumper, converted on a layup, added a free throw, and nailed a jumper to close out the first quarter trailing 12-7.
 
Lopez knocked down a three-pointer to make it 16-10 USC with 7:54 left in the half before USC put together a 17-3 run to close out the half to take the 33-13 lead into halftime.
 
USC continued that run in the second half as it scored the first 17 points of the third quarter before Lopez knocked down a pair of free throws for that gave USC the 50-15 lead. USC closed out the quarter with a 13-7 run to extend its lead to 63-22.
 
The Vaqueros outscored USC 21-17 in the fourth quarter with Graham scoring seven of her 10 points in the final frame but USC's lead was too much to overcome. 
 
The Vaqueros will be back in action on Friday when it faces Long Beach State at 5:30 p.m. at the Galen Center as part of the Women of Troy Classic.

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