Courtesy of Louisiana Tech Athletics
EL PASO, Texas – Anna Larr Roberson scored 23 points and grabbed seven rebounds, but that wasn’t enough as Louisiana Tech fell to UTEP 61-57 on Thursday night inside the Don Haskin Center.
LA Tech (8-12, 2-3 CUSA) was rolling early with three 3-pointers in the first four minutes of action. UTEP (7-11, 2-3) fought back to bring the Techsters lead to just 13-10 at the first media timeout.
The rest of the half was a back-and-forth battle. The Lady Techsters would see their lead to as much as six on several occasions, but the Miners would have an answer every time down the court.
“UTEP was the tougher team down the stretch today,” Lady Techster head coach Brooke Stoehr said. “We settled for difficult shots that whole first half. We’re up, and we settled for difficult shots. We didn’t move the ball like we were trying to play one-on-one. We learned all these lessons in November and December, and we learned that we have to move the ball and play together for easy shots. I felt like we got a few of those in the first half, but we just had so many empty possessions where we took difficult shots, and it’s why we didn’t shoot above 40 percent in the first half.
“I said for the whole week that this road trip is all about toughness on the boards and keeping them off the free throw line because they’ve been a team that’s struggled to score without those two things. There are only four of six from the line in the first half. We fouled there at the end, but they ended with 23 free throws.”
Roberson opened the second half with back-to-back buckets, and the Lady Techsters grew their lead to seven just three minutes into the third. That is when the Miners started attacking the basket and got to the free-throw line to cut the lead with the clock stopped.
UTEP got a jumper from Mahri Petree to open the fourth stanza to take their first lead since it was 2-0 to begin the contest. The Miners would then go to the charity stripe 11 times and knock down nine to continue putting pressure on the Lady Techsters.
Tech still had a chance to send the game into overtime with under 30 seconds remaining. Roberson laid the ball up underneath the basket and was fouled. After she connected on the and-one, UTEP would get a basket off the inbound and push the lead back to 60-57. The Techsters had one last chance, but a turnover with eight seconds remaining sealed the game.
UTEP had three players in double figures, led by Petree with 15. Erin Wilson finished with a double-double with 10 points and 10 rebounds.
