Lady Rebels survive in OT, still tied for 1st in Mountain West
With the wave of an official’s hand, UNLV had new life.
No basket. The Lady Rebels were going into overtime. And they made the most of it.
After a potential buzzer-beater from McKynzie Fort was called off following a video review, the Lady Rebels pulled away from San Diego State for a 73-67 overtime victory Saturday at Cox Pavilion.
UNLV (16-9, 11-3 Mountain West) remained tied for first place in the conference with Wyoming, which won at San Jose State 66-64. Both front-runners have four games left.
“Thank goodness for replay because they were calling it good. On the replay, it was clearly in her hands. I had Fresno State flashbacks,” said UNLV coach Kathy Olivier, referring to UNLV’s buzzer-beater loss to the Bulldogs this season.
The Lady Rebels were outrebounded and forced to shoot 3-pointers, which didn’t start falling until overtime. They finished 5 of 24 (20.8 percent) on 3s.
“They were giving us some good looks, but we just couldn’t make our shots,” Olivier said. “But they did a good job. They packed it in, they were trying to take our post away and they did a fairly good job of that.”
And anytime it looked as if UNLV might pull away, San Diego State came back.
UNLV led by 13 points in the second quarter before the Aztecs (10-15, 4-10) pulled within 32-30 at halftime. The Lady Rebels appeared to be pulling away in the fourth quarter, but the Aztecs rallied again.
“We had a lot of moments where we would go on our runs and then they would get on their runs and come back and hit 3s and it was like going back and forth and it was kind of frustrating,” UNLV forward Jordyn Bell said. “All of us as a team (at) halftime came in here and talked about it, all decided that we were not going to let that happen again, but it did.”
San Diego State’s Khalia Lark hit two free throws to tie the score with less than a minute left before Fort’s shot as regulation expired bounced off the back of the rim before dropping in.
Her teammates jumped off the bench in celebration before the official review sent the game into overtime.
UNLV never trailed again, but point guard Nikki Wheatley, who had 13 points and seven rebounds, left the game with an ankle injury.
Katie Powell, who missed Wednesday’s game at Air Force with an ankle injury, led the Lady Rebels with 18 points. Brooke Johnson hit only 4 of 17 field goals but scored 17, including five free throws in overtime.
“We felt basically like we shouldn’t have been in the game with them,” Bell said. “We should have taken off a lot sooner, but we’re just happy that we came back and dug deep and got the W.”
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Contact Betsy Helfand at bhelfand@reviewjournal.com. Follow @BetsyHelfand on Twitter.
