It wasn't the prettiest win, but the UNM women's basketball team pulled away in the second half to improve to 8-1 with a 63-54 win over Big 12 foe Texas Tech on Saturday.
The Lobos came out hot and stormed to a 9-0 lead with 15:16 left in the first half, but the Red Raiders stormed back with a 10-0 run to take a 10-9 lead with 9:40 to go.
UNM head coach Don Flanagan said it was important for the Lobos to start off hot against Texas Tech.
"We did get off to a good run, and we were playing pretty well there, but then we let them back in it defensively," Flanagan said. "But I think that is when I switched to the zone defense a little bit to slow them up. You cannot give a team like that confidence, because they have a lot of athletic kids. If they get confidence, they can be pretty tough to beat."
In front of about 9,000 fans at The Pit, two seniors - Amy Beggin and Amanda Adamson - shined in the win.
Beggin finished the game with a career-high 27 points and five rebounds, but no assists. Adamson finished with 10 points and 20 rebounds.
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Coming into the Texas Tech game, Beggin was averaging 4.7 assists per game and had a season total of 43.
"She told me the other day that she wants to shoot all the time now and stop passing," Flanagan said, joking. "She didn't have the ball in her hands tonight, but she can play the two guard very effectively. We don't use her at that position, but before this season is over, we will use her at the two guard because she shoots the 3 very well and creates so many problems from that position."
Beggin said her teammates helped her achieve a career high in points.
"We just did a great job of screening tonight," she said. "I was just coming off ready to shoot when I was playing the two-guard position when I didn't have the ball. I was just prepared to shoot tonight."
The Lobos - with help from Adamson and Beggin - fought off another Red Raiders run when Texas Tech took a 20-17 lead with 3:50 left in the first half.
Adamson corralled a dead-ball rebound off her own free throw miss and, on the inbound, hit a jumper to pull the Lobos to within 1.
"I thought Amanda Adamson played, maybe, her best game," Flanagan said. "She brought the ball up (court) and did a lot of good things for us."
But it was Beggin who would shift the momentum heading into halftime.
With 1:07 left in the first half, Beggin drained a 3-pointer to put UNM up 22-20.
The Lobos survived an early second-half surge by the Red Raiders. With 19:13 left in the game, Jordan Murphree hit a 3 to put Texas Tech up 23-22.
That was the last lead Tech would hold.
At the 5:44 mark in the second half, senior center Angela Hartill hit a jumper to give UNM its biggest lead of the night. It was an 18-point lead, placing UNM up 59-42.
Hartill finished the game with 16 points, two assists and 10 rebounds.
"They had a lot of athleticism and quickness, and it bothered us for a while. It bothered us late and bothered us early," Flanagan said. "We overcame most of it in the second half."
Women's basketball vs. UTEP
Wednesday, 7 p.m.
The Pit
