RIO GRANDE VALLEY – Junior forward
Charlotte O'Keefe recorded her second 20/20 game of the season with a career-high 24 rebounds and 20 points Saturday, but The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) Vaqueros women's basketball team fell, 72-59, in the regular season finale to the New Orleans (UNO) Privateers at the UTRGV Fieldhouse.
With the loss, UTRGV (16-15, 11-9 Southland Conference) will be the No. 6 seed in the SLC Basketball Championships and will play No. 7 Nicholls at 1:30 p.m. on March 10 at the Legacy Center in Lake Charles, La. in the first round of the tournament.
O'Keefe stuffed the stat sheet, adding game-highs of five assists and three blocks to her big game. She ends the regular season with 389 rebounds, moving up to seventh on the SLC all-time single-season rebounding list with at least one game remaining. Senior guard
Tierra Trotter added 12 points, three assists and three rebounds. Graduate student G/F
Kade Hackerott and graduate student forward
Chynell Mitchell scored nine and eight points, respectively, and combined for 10 rebounds.
Nora Francois led UNO (4-24, 4-15 SLC) with 16 points, nine rebounds, three assists and two blocks.
Jasmine Jones scored 12 and
Shanihya Brown added 11 points.
The Vaqueros scored their first four points from the charity stripe and opened up an early 10-4 lead as they found success inside. The Privateers responded with five unanswered points and the game was knotted at 11-11 midway through the first quarter as UTRGV didn't score from the field for three minutes. Freshman guard
Elizabeth Romer put the Vaqueros on top with a three-pointer, but UNO came right back to build a five point advantage and led, 21-19, at the end of the frame after a late three from Hackerott.
The game continued to run at a fast pace as the teams went back-and-forth with scoring spurts and good defensive plays. O'Keefe showed her effort with a diving defensive rebound that turned into a layup for Mitchell and sparked an energetic push for the Vaqueros. Trotter hit a pull-up jumper and O'Keefe made a pair of late free throws to have UTRGV on top, 31-29, at halftime.
After a first half that was filled with momentum swings, resulting in four ties and six lead changes, UNO took control of the third quarter. Freshman guard
Kayla Lorenz extended UTRGV's lead to four points with a corner three-pointer off an inbound play, but then the Privateers kept the Vaqueros scoreless for over four minutes. UNO went on a 15-0 run to take the 46-35 lead. O'Keefe scored the final seven points of the quarter for UTRGV and had her team within 48-42 heading to the fourth.
UTRGV's offensive woes continued and the Privateers opened up a 58-42 lead after back-to-back threes with seven minutes to play. The Vaqueros made a push in the final minutes of the game, getting within nine points after free throws from O'Keefe with two minutes to play, but the deficit was too big to overcome while shooting just 25% from the field in the fourth.
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