by Steven Fernandez
Daily Lobo
Don Flanagan has led the UNM women's basketball team to three conference championships, six NCAA Tournament appearances and is the winningest coach in school history.
But he had never won two road games in Utah in the same season - until this weekend.
The Lobos defeated Utah 73-65 on Thursday in Salt Lake City before earning an 80-75 overtime victory at Brigham Young on Saturday in Provo.
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Flanagan said the sweep was a stunning achievement.
"I'm not sure anybody wins two games up there in conference," he said during a phone interview. "For us to do it was terrific."
Heading into the games, Utah and BYU had the top two records in the Mountain West Conference.
Entering Thursday's game, Utah was 7-2 in conference play while UNM was 1-27 all-time at Utah. BYU was 8-1 in the MWC before Saturday's game
With about 10 minutes left in Thursday's game, the Lobos trailed by 13 points before surging in the final minutes to pull away from the Utes. UNM senior Katie Montgomery carried the Lobos by scoring 22 points in the second half. She finished with a career-high 29 and passed the 1,000-point mark for her career.
Against BYU, junior Dionne Marsh took over for the Lobos. UNM trailed by nine in the second half Saturday, but Marsh's 27 points and 17 rebounds helped force overtime.
UNM fell behind in overtime but took the lead for good at the 1:02 mark after an Amy Beggin 3-pointer. Montgomery had another big scoring night against BYU, recording 22 points.
Flanagan said Marsh and Montgomery's production was vital to the sweep in Utah.
"Katie had two excellent games," he said. "Both Katie and Dionne had terrific games. We really needed it. We had to play at our best to beat either one of those teams."
Despite the large deficits late in both games, the Lobos didn't show any signs of quitting, and that will be key the rest of the season, Flanagan said.
"There were times in both of those games we could have just given it up," he said. "We gave a great effort to come back. We showed a lot of toughness and good chemistry."
With the two wins over the weekend, UNM is riding a five-game winning streak and improved to 17-7 overall and 7-4 in the MWC. The Lobos started 0-3 in conference play.
During Flanagan's tenure, the Lobos have been dominant in MWC play at The Pit. At times, they have struggled in road conference games, but this weekend could give the Lobos the confidence they need to keep winning on the road, Flanagan said.
"It's pretty exciting right now the way we're playing - the way we feel about ourselves," he said. "We got to keep on working obviously, but we put ourselves in the race a little bit."
BYU remains atop the MWC standings at 17-6 overall and 8-2 in the conference. Texas Christian is second at 18-7, 8-3, followed by Utah, which is 15-9 and 8-3. Wyoming comes in fourth at 16-6
and 7-3.
UNM's 17-7, 7-4 mark puts it at fifth place in the standings with six conference games remaining.
Because of the 0-3 start, it's still a long shot for the Lobos to leap to first place. However, Flanagan said he is more concerned with improvement down the stretch.
"The only thing we can control is what we do," he said. "We just got to take it one game at a time, and who knows what could happen? We just want to keep getting better and play with a great effort."
Women's
basketball vs. Colorado State
Wednesday, 7 p.m.
The Pit
