Thursday's Sports Update: Miners pick away victory over Owls at home

By Yan Digilov     2/12/09 6:00pm

The women's basketball team came home for the first of a four-game home stretch tonight against the University of Texas-El Paso. The game turned out to be a near repeat of their last match-up. Both teams stuck close to one another for most of the game, but a late game collapse by the Owls gave the visiting team a sizable final margin of victory, 69-57.From the start of the game, though, Rice showed their determination to bring their 11-game losing streak to an end, pulling out to an early 9-4 lead seven minutes into the game. The Miners were struggling with a scoring slump, shooting only 23 percent from the field after the first ten minutes.

The pace of the game picked up as the teams reached the midway point in the half. The contest turned into a shootout between senior guard Maudess Fulton and UTEP's junior point guard Jareica Hughes. Fulton scored the final 12 of 17 points for Rice in the half. She finished the game-leading the Owls with 21 points.

The back-and-forth between Hughes and Fulton took a turn in the Miners' direction when Hughes hit a three-pointer to tie the game at 21 points with three minutes left. Freshman point guard D'Frantz Smart, who recently returned from injury, was charged with the task of holding Hughes, but the leading scorer for the Miners would not relent, finishing the first half with 12 of her eventual 23 points on the night.

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However, the Owls were able to keep their composure at home and regain the lead after a three-pointer from junior guard Tara Watts. Watts finished the game with 12 points, an encouraging sign for the guard that has been slowly coming out of a long shooting slump in recent games. The home team entered the locker rooms at halftime with a three-point, 26-23 lead.

As soon as the whistle blew for the start of the second half, it looks as though two new teams had taken the court. The game switched from a slow-paced struggle to score to a coast-to-coast race to the basket, as both teams switched to a full court press.

The Miners took advantage of a 6-0 run in the early minutes of the half to pull ahead to a 31-30 lead after three minutes of play.

"I think we were a little fatigued," Fulton said. "We just weren't getting back, and that really hurt us. They got some really easy points."

With the help of consistent play from Fulton and another three-pointer from Watts, the Owls regained the lead with 15 minutes left, 34-31.

But nobody told the Owls that it would be easy to suppress the Miners' offense. Hughes, along with UTEP sophomore Britany Jones made the Owls see deja vu, and they led the Miners to a persistent approach that slowly gave them a four-point lead midway through the second half.

Soon, Rice fell into a shooting slump that has become their calling card in the second part of the season. Down only five points, 49-44, with eight minutes left, the Miners ran away with a 10-0 run. Rice went five minutes without scoring a basket to close out the game, and dropped their 11th in a row despite playing a solid, hard-fought game for 35 minutes.

"Our toughness and ability to close out games has to improve," Fulton said. "I know that we have it in us. It is just a matter of us all doing it on the same day. That has just been a problem."

Head coach Greg Williams was disappointed in the team's inability to handle the pressure of the press down the stretch.

"Our decision-making, obviously with 26 turnovers, was bad," Williams. "We were tentative, and that is the worst thing you could do against a press . At times this year, we have attacked that exact same press well, but tonight we didn't."

The Owls take on the University of Tulane on Saturday at Tudor Fieldhouse. Tip-off is set for 2:00 pm.

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