The UTEP women’s basketball team defeated the Marshall Thundering Herd in double overtime, 64-56, in the first round of the Conference-USA women’s Basketball Championship in Frisco, Texas.
UTEP (9-21, 5-11 C-USA) came into the tournament as the 11th seed as they upset Marshall (16-14, 10-16 C-USA) who entered the tournament as the 6th seed. UTEP was led by their lone senior forward Jordan Alexander as she had a team-high 16 points and eight rebounds performance.
Head Coach Kevin Baker’s club went into halftime down by four, 20-16, with the teams two leading scorers, junior’s guard Katarina Zec and forward Zuzana Puc combing for zero points.
Zec would flip the switch late in the fourth quarter when UTEP found themselves trailing by five. She was part of a scoring run that gave the Miners their first lead in the game with 1:44 remaining in the fourth quarter. The junior would finish with 12 points, seven rebounds and three assists.
UTEP had a chance to win at the end of regulation but the 3-point attempt by freshman forward Ariana Taylor missed the rim and bounced after the backboard.
The game was again tied at 50 with 14 seconds left in the first overtime. After Marshall made two free throws to give them a two-point lead junior forward Ariona Gill would make a game expiring layup to tie the game up at 52.
UTEP would dominate in the second overtime by getting back to back 3-pointers to give them a four-point lead. it. UTEP shot 3-20 from behind the arc. After forcing bad shots Marshall into bad shot attempts UTEP was able to push the lead to eight with 16 seconds left.
UTEP advances to next round of the tournament to face No. 3 Middle Tennesse Blue Raiders tomorrow at 1 p.m. at Frisco, Texas.
