Wyoming Wins Bat­tle of Cowgirls

In a bat­tle of Cow­girls Wyoming came out with a great win. Wyoming took on the Okla­homa State Cow­girls in the sec­ond round of the WNIT where they came up with a close win. Okla­homa State got a first round win over Pep­per­dine and although it was a good win it meant they had to come to Laramie. Wyoming destroyed Port­land State in the first round in front of a large enough crowd to give them another home game. Okla­homa State had a good sea­son before con­fer­ence play started where they then strug­gled. Wyoming had a great sea­son but came up short of mak­ing the big dance but they are look­ing to show they still have game.

The game started with Randi hit­ting a three point shot to give Wyoming a lead. OSU answered by mak­ing the next two bas­kets tak­ing the lead. Wyoming then went on a run to give them a small cush­ion but against a good OSU team it would not be safe. OSU con­tin­ued to fight but most of the first half was dom­i­nated by Wyoming. With 5:16 left in the half Aubrey got a layup to put Wyoming up 16. Then with 3:06 left Wyoming still had a 16 point lead but this is when OSU started to make a come­back. They ended the half on an 8–0 run to drop the deficit to eight points. OSU con­tin­ued this run to start the sec­ond half where they went on 9–0 run. This gave OSU a one point lead but Wyoming was not ready for their sea­son to end. It was not long before Wyoming was back on top which got the crowd back into the game. The sec­ond half was a bat­tle as the lead changed eight times and the game was tied four times. Both teams played tough ball in the sec­ond half but when it mat­tered Wyoming held the lead. With a lit­tle over a minute left in the game Wyoming was up by nine but OSU was not going to give up. They hit back to back threes to get within three points, Wyoming then made 2–4 free throws but OSU answered with another three. By this time there was only 26 sec­onds left which meant OSU was forced to foul. Wyoming ended the game with Hillary mak­ing two free throws to give them a four point win.

OSU has a very tall team but even with their size advan­tage they barely won the bat­tle of the boards pulling down only seven more rebounds. OSU con­tin­u­ally changed their defen­sive setups which made it hard for the Cow­girls to get open shots. This meant that play­ers had to make their own shots more often than usual but they still had 14 assists on 23 bas­kets. With the height advan­tage OSU scored more points in the paint but that was fine since Wyoming is a good shoot­ing team that does not rely on layups. Wyoming recorded six blocks in this game while only get­ting blocked once. OSU made five more field goals than Wyoming but to do this they had to take 21 more shots. Wyoming was able to get this win by forc­ing OSU to foul send­ing Wyoming to the line for 19 more free throw attempts than OSU.

Cow­girl Aubrey Van­diver fights for the ball against Okla­homa State in the 2^nd round of the WNIT tour­na­ment. (John McKnight/LFP)

Wyoming had four play­ers score in dou­ble fig­ures; Chaun­dra, Hillary, Aubrey and Bec. Randi was just one point shy of join­ing the list with these four. Jade did not have a good shoot­ing night miss­ing all four of her attempts but still had a good game. She ended with six rebounds, a block and a steal. Chaun­dra was one rebound short of a double-double. She had nine rebounds, 10 points, five assists and a block. Randi was per­fect from the field mak­ing all three of her shots which hap­pened to be from deep. She not only had nine points but also three rebounds, four assists and a steal. One of her most notable rebounds was over an OSU player that is nearly a foot taller than her. This great rebound goes to show how ath­letic she is and how ded­i­cated she is to the team’s suc­cess. Bec came up big off the bench get­ting 10 points shoot­ing 2–3 from deep and 4–4 from the line. Hillary had a huge game with 19 points, five rebounds, three assists, a steal and four blocks. She has become known for her great block­ing abil­ity and in this game she did not dis­ap­point. Aubrey once again stepped up big to lead the team to a vic­tory. She recorded another double-double with 10 rebounds and 27 points. Her 27 points were a game high and her 10 rebounds tied Sut­tles from OSU for a game high. Once again these play­ers all stepped up con­tribut­ing in their own way help­ing Wyoming have suc­cess. Ash­ley played seven min­utes and although she did not put stats on the sheet she did help the Cow­girls win. She played tough defense while in the game; the stat sheet does not always tell the story of a player.

Chaun­dra Sewell gets called for a hold­ing foul on an Okla­homa State offen­sive player. (John McKnight/LFP)

This was a great game for Wyoming although the team would have liked to have held on to the 16 point lead they held in the first half. Although it was a close game it was good since it chal­lenged the team to help pre­pare them for Col­orado on Thurs­day March 24^th. The teams Wyoming could face get bet­ter as they advance through the tour­na­ment so they need to be kept on their toes. Wyoming played in front of a crowd of 5372 which was large enough to allow them to con­tinue to play at home. This was a larger crowd than the Cow­girls are used to but they are hop­ing that Thurs­day they will have the AA a lit­tle more packed. In the win against OSU the play­ers admit­ted that the fans kept them going when things got tough. If 5300 fans can help fuel them to a win just imag­ine what they can do in front of a larger crowd. As the games get tougher they could use more fans in the seats cheer­ing them on. The AA is a tough place to play when it is filled and fans are loud. With the sea­son the Cow­girls have had it would be great to see this senior class go out with a WNIT cham­pi­onship. To make this hap­pen fans need to come out and show Wyoming pride. With the help of the fans this tal­ented Cow­girls team is capa­ble of win­ning this tournament.

Head Coach Joe Leg­erski has words with a ref­eree while Assis­tant coach Katie Kern pulls him back into the hud­dle. (John McKnight/LFP)