PROVO, UTAH—Leaving everything they had on the floor, the UC Riverside Women's Basketball team came up just short Friday night against BYU, taking a 72-70 loss in overtime.
After a shot clock violation on the Cougars, UCR got the ball back with 3.5 seconds left in overtime. Keilanei Cooper took a few dribbles after receiving the inbound pass and found Tianna Eaton on the right side, who missed a three-pointer as the buzzer sounded.
The end result wasn't without a few tears in the locker room.
"I liked that the game was on the line the whole time and we had to execute," head coach John Margaritis said. "It exposed what we did and didn't do well. It is a good learning lesson for us."
A back and forth battle the entire night, the game had 12 ties and 13 lead changes.
Margaritis played only seven student-athletes during the game, four of which had 15 or more points. Marina Ewodo, who played the entire game, had 15 points and 10 rebounds. Jannon Otto also had 15 points and 10 rebounds.
"They gutted it out and went as hard as they could go for a long time," said Margaritis.
After Eaton drained a three-pointer at the buzzer to end the third quarter and give UCR a 52-50 lead, the fourth quarter scoring began with a three pointer by Malou De Kergret.
De Kergret came up big again in the final minute when she hit a three-pointer with 38 seconds left in regulation to give UCR a 66-64 lead. However, BYU was quick to score after that when Paisley Johnson knocked down a jumper with 25 seconds left to tie the game and send it into overtime knotted at 66.
"Every game we are going to have something else to learn from and this game will do exactly that," said Margaritis.
The team began the game full of energy, jumping out to an early lead thanks to Ewodo and Eaton, who had 15 of UCR's 21 points in the first quarter.
However, BYU came out on fire in the second quarter, going on a 9-0 run. The Highlanders went cold in the second quarter, shooting 25 percent from the field (4-for-16), but still clawed their way back, going into halftime down 37-33.
While the team did a better job of drawing fouls on Friday than in the season opener against USC, UCR had trouble converting, going just 12-for-23 from the free throw line. BYU also went just 12-for-21 from the line.
"I just think we should expect a lot from ourselves and because of that we should be disappointed," Margaritis said. "With that being said, if you analyze the games in positives and negatives, we did a lot of good things."
UCR now heads to Oklahoma State on Sunday to finish out a three-game road trip.
"Knowing what we've done so far in these first two games, if we can go into Oklahoma State and win, it's a small building block to hang our hat on," said Margaritis.
