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Women's Basketball
vs Western Colorado (EXHIBITION)
Saturday, December 7
SALT LAKE CITY
3:00 p.m.
University of Utah
64
vs
57
FRESNO STATE
Utah Women's Basketball Team Wins Fourth Straight
12/9/2002 12:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Dec. 7, 2002
SALT LAKE CITY -
Shona Thorburn scored 27 points and the University of Utah women's basketball team survived a late Fresno State run to record its fourth straight win, 64-57 in the Huntsman Center Saturday. The Utes seemed to have the game under wraps with 12 minutes remaining and a 17-point lead. But a pressing Bulldog defense, along with 13 FSU second-chance points, nearly erased it.
Fresno State's Lindsay Logan, a product of Alta High School (Sandy, Utah), brought the Bulldogs to within three, 60-57, within 29 seconds left when she completed a three-point play at the free throw stripe. But Thorburn made a twisting layup with 13 seconds left to give Utah a 62-57 cushion and two Carley Marshall free throws accounted for the final margin of victory.
Thorburn put on quite a show for the noisy crowd of 1,097, which included a large contingent of children who had earlier in the day attended a cheerleading clinic. Thorburn, a sophomore playing her first year of NCAA ball, tied her career high with 27 points and also grabbed 8 rebounds. She shot 9-17 from the field on an array of nice drives and long range shooting (she shot 4-8 from behind the 3-point line).
Utah head coach Elaine Elliott, who saw her team improve to 4-1 on the season while knocking Fresno State to 3-3, blamed Utah's youth on the late Bulldog rally. "I didn't think Fresno's full court pressure really rattled us in the second half. We just are still learning how to make good decisions," she said of the Utes, who started a freshman, three sophomores and a junior. Instead, Elliott fingered loose balls and second chance points as the culprits. "Their quickness allowed them to get most of the loose balls down the stretch and they got a lot of second shots. It would have been better had we not tried to block shots because then we weren't quick enough to get the rebounds."
Again, Utah put on a defensive clinic, holding Fresno State to 33-percent shooting from the field. None of Utah's opponents this year has shot better than 37-percent from the floor. The Bulldogs were particularly inept offensively early in the game, missing eight of their first nine shots.
Thorburn led a contingent of four Utes who scored in double figures. Freshman Julie Wood from Skyview HS in Logan scored a career-high 11 points, as did junior center Carley Marshall. Freshman Kim Smith, who was averaging a team-best 19.5 points per game entering the contest, chipped in 10 points.
Players Mentioned
G
/ Women's Basketball
G
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