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Women's Basketball
vs Western Colorado (EXHIBITION)
Saturday, February 19
Salt Lake City
5:00 PM
University of Utah
61
vs
58
New Mexico
Rodrigues' Buzzer Beater Downs Lobos, 61-58
2/19/2011 12:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Feb. 19, 2011
SALT LAKE CITY - Iwalani Rodrigues hit a buzzer-beater three-pointer to defeat New Mexico, 61-58 on Saturday afternoon in the Huntsman Center.
Utah was looking at overtime after New Mexico's Porche Torrance tied the game with a hard-fought layup with three seconds remaining. On the Ute inbound, Rachel Messer threw a high pass to Michelle Plouffe at mid-court, who tipped it to Janita Badon. Badon passed it off to an open Rodrigues at the baseline, and her three-pointer swished cleanly into the net as the buzzer sounded for the Ute victory.
It was the culmination of a hard-fought second-half comeback that was led by Badon, who scored 18 of her 21 points in the second half. Plouffe also scored 21 points on the night while Michelle Harrison had a team-high nine rebounds.
New Mexico held an eight-point lead at halftime, 28-20, and held as much as a 12-point lead in the second half. Utah chipped away through much of the second half, first cutting a 12-point lead to six with a 6-0 run to put the game at 43-37 with nine minutes left. Although the Lobos again pushed the lead up to eight, 48-40 with 8:00 left, Utah took its first lead of the second half on a 9-0 run over the next three minutes for a 49-48 score. Badon had a layup and two free throws in the run which included a three from Rodrigues.
The score stayed close in the final minutes. Torrance and Jasmine Patterson made back-to-back shots to put the Lobos ahead by four, 55-51, with just under two minutes left, but Plouffe hit two free throws and Rodrigues made another three in the next minute to again push Utah ahead, 56-55.
Every possession counted in the final seconds, and free throws were a key for both teams. Badon, Plouffe and New Mexico's Jessica Kielpinski each only made one of two free throws in the final minute, keeping the two-point advantage with the Utes, 58-56. UNM got the ball back in the final 10 seconds for Torrance to make her layup before Rodrigues' heroics.
Four players were in double figure scoring for New Mexico, led by 16 points from Torrance. Amanda Best had 10 rebounds.
New Mexico held a slim lead through most of the first half, but the Utes easily stayed within a basket or two. After tying the game at 20-20 on a three-pointer from Badon with 4:29 remaining, Utah went scoreless in the final minutes of the half. New Mexico ended the half on an 8-0 run to hold a 28-20 lead at halftime. The Lobos took advantage of foul struggles from the Utes, going 10-for-10 from the charity stripe in the half.
Utah has won 10-straight over the Lobos, while the last 12 games of the series have been decided by single digits.
Utah has a quick turnaround, facing TCU in Fort Worth on Tuesday, Feb. 22, at 5:30 p.m. MT (6:30 p.m. CT). The game will be televised on The Mtn.
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