By Christian Lasher
No April Fools here, the late season run for the Wyoming Cowgirls is over. The Minnesota Golden Gophers topped off their first ever trip to Laramie Monday night with a 65-54 win to advance to the Final Four of the WNIT.
The Big-10 Conference Gophers (19-15) were led by Amaya Battle who scored 29 in the contest. Despite Wyoming’ Junior Center Allyson Fertig’s sixth double-double in the last 7 games, the Cowgirls fell to 18-15 with the loss to end its season. Fertig’s monster effort resulted in 20 points and 11 rebounds.
Senior Guard McKinley Dickerson added 9 points while Sophomore Guard Melene Pedersen poured in 7 in the losing effort.
Wyoming’s Junior Forward Emily Mellema contributed with 6 rebonds and 5 assists.
With the game knotted at 40 points each after 3 quarters, the 3,710 screaming fans in Wyoming’s Arena-Auditorium knew they were in a for a close finish.
Midway through the 4th quarter was when the visitors shifted the tide of the contest. With 6:50 left in regulation, Wyoming hung on to a one point lead.
A barrage of Wyoming fouls put the Gophers on the free-throw line.
Minnesota shot 21 free throws compared to Wyoming’s 9 in the fourth.
“I think we picked up about 3 quick fouls and got them into bonus really early. That's really what hurt us. You know when you're putting a machine on the line that many times and not making them have to work? It lets them get some easy points.” Head Coach Heather Ezell commented in the game press conference.
Trips to the free throw line and 5 of the last 6 Gopher field goals tickling the twine was too much for Wyoming to hang on and advance in the tournament.
Another prominent statistic on the stat sheet? Eight Wyoming 4th quarter turnovers lead to 4 Gopher points.
“We just had a little bit too many turnovers that just kind of give them extra points. They went on a little run that we just couldn't stop and I think it was just stuff we did. It wasn't something they changed on us. We just had a couple turnovers that led to easy baskets for them.” Fertig said.
Being one of the younger teams in the Mountain West Conference, the Cowgirls return their entire starting five next year. Ezell says that is very encouraging after this post season run.
“I told our team afterwards that we all can be sad that we lost. You know we're always disappointed when the season comes to end. But at the same time, what we did in these three weeks is nothing to hang our head on. We gotta walk around with our chins up and know that we have an opportunity next year to come in and if we have that same focus that we've had in these three weeks, we're gonna be a team that teams are gonna have to look at every time that they come across us.”
Fertig added her thoughts, “I’m so proud of the growth we had within the last month and our little run in the WNIT. We’re seeing huge growth of everyone and we're going to really miss some of our seniors like Marta (Savic) and Paula (Salazar,) but I’m proud to have these other girls back next year.”
Coach Ezell challenged the fans to show up to the game after last Friday’s win. The fans accepted the challenge.
“I give so much credit to our fans. They're so awesome. They come out and support us…you have Good Friday, we still had a great crowd. You’ve got the day after Easter, we still have a great crowd. I know if we would have won, it would have been a bigger crowd on Wednesday. It’s such a huge, advantage for us to have fans like we do and the way they support us.”
The Cowgirls head into the offseason thankful for having the opportunity to play in the WNIT.
Fertig added, “Whenever you have the chance to play in the postseason, it's a thing to be so thankful for because a lot of teams don't get to play (in the post season.) I've never played in April, so that was awesome and just being able to keep playing with this group of girls you never want it to end.”