Defense Leads the Way to @UNCBearsWBB Win Over Southern Utah

Thursday, January 21

Greeley, Colo.

7:00 pm

University of Northern Colorado

8-9, 3-4BSC

Southern Utah

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Southern Utah

Northern Colorado

Photo by: Rob Trubia

1/21/2016 10:35:00 PM | Women's Basketball

Box Score

Northern Colorado clamped down on defense in its win over Southern Utah Thursday night

By: Ryan Pfeifer, UNCBears.com

GREELEY, Colo.—Defense and career-highs were the name of the game for Northern Colorado women's basketball Thursday night. The Bears defeated Southern Utah 64-44 to extend their home game win streak to three.

"Our past two home games have been a little bit of a heart attack, but we played well tonight," Rebecca Howell said. "We still have some things to clean up after tonight, but it felt like we ran our offense well."

UNC held Southern Utah to a season-low 28.6 percent shooting and forced a season-high 21 turnovers in the victory. The 21 turnovers turned into 21 points for Northern Colorado.

"I think we did a really good job of scouting for tonight's game and knew we would be doubling their post players and executed it well," said Savannah Smith.

Six of those 21 T-Bird turnovers came via a steal from sophomore Savannah Scott. The six steals were a career-high for her to go along with her 10 points, eight rebounds and four assists.

Scott wasn't the only Bear to set a career-high Thursday, the other Savannah, Savannah Smith, scored 20 points in the game for a career-best as well. She hit three 3-pointers, shot 50.0 percent from the field along with going 5-for-5 from the charity strip to get to the 20. She also grabbed six rebounds and a steal on
the record setting night.

"Our guard game was real good with the Savannahs tonight and that is encouraging to see Savvy (Savanah Smith) have a game like she had tonight," head coach Kamie Ethridge said. "Our concern continues to be on the offensive end and I'll be interested to see if we just missed shots that we liked tonight."

While the Savannah's accumulated their stats over the game, it was Rebecca Howell who got things started for the team. Howell scored 10 of the team's first 12 points and helped the Bears lead 14-6 after the first quarter of play.

She ended the night with 12 points, three rebounds and an assist. Front court mate, Courtney Smith continued her current surge for UNC with eight points of her own.

"I thought it was a great game for us in a lot of different perspectives. We are working on different line ups and sizes and went with a real big line-up for the first time and I liked that," Ethridge said.

By halftime of the game, Northern Colorado led by nine at 29-20, and put the game away with a 6-1 run to end the third quarter leading, 48-31.

"We need to continue to be more consistent moving forward," Howell said. "When we get a stop we need to then have a good offensive possession and string those together to keep improving as a team."

The Bears will look to continue its success at home when they host Northern Arizona Saturday, Jan. 23 at 2:00 p.m. inside Bank of Colorado Arena. The Lumberjacks are coming off a 63-56 loss at North Dakota on Thursday.