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Women's Basketball
vs Western Colorado (EXHIBITION)
Saturday, February 19
Salt Lake City, Utah
3:00 PM
University of Utah
74
vs
45
Air Force
Utah Women Shoot Down Falcons, 74-45
2/19/2005 12:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Feb. 19, 2005
SALT LAKE CITY -- The University of Utah women's basketball team used a barrage of three-pointers to bury the Air Force Academy 74-45 Saturday afternoon at the Huntsman Center. The Utes' victory, along with BYU's upset of league-leading New Mexico, puts Utah back into a first-place tie in the Mountain West Conference.
Utah (19-6, 8-2 MWC) scored the first nine points of the ballgame, seven of them coming from junior guard Shona Thorburn. Air Force (7-16, 2-8) pulled within three, 11-8, at the 12-minute mark of the first half. But that's as close as the Falcons would get.
Utah junior Julie Wood dropped a three-pointer from the left corner with 10:47 remaining in the first half to push her team's advantage back to six, 14-8. Wood's trey sparked a 10-0 spurt, which left Utah on top by 13 points, 21-8. Air Force was never within single digits again.
Utah led 28-17 with 2:56 remaining in the first half when the Falcons' Lauren Henderson scored on a layup. But sophomore guard Heidi Carlsen hit a three-pointer and senior guard Lana Sitterud followed with two more before the intermission to give the Utes a 20-point lead at the intermission, 37-17.
It was more of the same in the second half. Utah pushed its lead to 32 points over the first eight minutes of the second period. Freshman Jessica Perry and Sitterud each hit three-pointers, as the Utes outscored Air Force 18-6 to open the second half and effectively put the game on ice. The Falcons pulled within 24 points on two occasions in the second half, but never mounted a serious challenge. .
Utah hit 12-of-19 from three-point range in the game for a .632 percentage. The Utes shot .630 from the field. The only place Utah struggled was at the free-throw line where they shot a season-low 44.4 percent on just 4-of-9 attempts. All 11 Utah players in uniform saw action in the game and all but one scored in the contest.
The Utes were paced by Thorburn's 14-point, nine-assist effort. Junior forward Kim Smith, Carlsen and Sitterud each tallied 11 points, while Perry was just shy of double figures with nine points. Smith led the way on the boards with eight rebounds.
Lauren Henderson came off the bench to tally 10 points for Air Force and was the only Falcon in double figures.
Utah is in action again Thursday night in its home finale. The Utes will host BYU in a 7 p.m. contest at the Huntsman Center.
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