Trudgingly, the UNM women’s basketball team trekked to a 65-50 victory over downtrodden Colorado State.
For the greater part of 30 minutes, the Lobos (16-10, 8-6 Mountain West Conference) slogged toward the finish line — but they did finish, stringing together enough effort in a concentrated four-minute period to open the second half, in which Eileen Weissmann had four points, one coming off a 3-pointer.
“Every time we come out after halftime, we always say we have to win the first four minutes,” Weissmann said. “That’s what our strength has been in the games we’ve won, because we come out and really attack. Whereas I feel in some of the games that were close that we lost we didn’t come out with the intensity that we showed tonight.”
A spirited endeavor, plus a 3-point parade from Colorado State’s Kim Mestdagh and Chatilla Van Grinsven, kept the Rams within striking distance — and initially put Flanagan in a scowling mood.
“Everybody in the building knows (Mestdagh’s) a 3-point shooter,” the Lobos’ head coach said. “Yet we don’t get out and put enough pressure on her.”
All the same, Flanagan said the Lobos were intent upon taking 3-pointers in the first half. Though they only shot nine, Flanagan said they were, at times, ill-advised.
“I thought we were looking to shoot the 3 instead of letting the 3 shot come to them,” he said. “What they were doing was, ‘It might be out of my range, but I’ll shoot a 3.’”
However, the Lobos quickened their pace in the opening minutes of the second half. In that stretch, the beleaguered Lobos turned up the intensity.
Back came the Rams, though — Bonnie Barbee draining a trey ball.
Still, after missing the last three games with a head injury, Amy Beggin wasn’t to be denied.
She hardly showed signs of rust, swishing a 3-pointer to pull the Lobos within one point, before Weissmann belted up another dagger to reclaim the lead for UNM, 39-37. Beggin led the Lobos with a team-high 16 points, and she also led the Lobos in minutes with 33.
“I felt like a little kid all day waiting for the game,” Beggin said. “I was excited to get back out there. I’ve never missed a game, even going back to preschool.”
Too bad for CSU, Beggin didn’t miss this one.
Later, the Rams pushed to within three points. The Lobos, though, pushed back.
A 3-point bucket from Barbee pulled the Rams within 48-45 with 10:03 left in the second half. After that, however, the Rams drowned in the midst of a seven-minute field-goal drought, until Mestdagh’s 3-pointer. By then, it was too little, far too late.
Meanwhile, UNM whirled to a 11-2 run, boosting the lead to 12 with under four minutes to go.
“Tale of two halves — I thought the second half we were much better defensively,” Flanagan said. “I thought we were slow to cut and weren’t active enough on offense, and then we were allowing them too many easy shots. What we were doing was pressuring the kids that are not their primary shooters and missing out on their shooters.”
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If only the Rams had kept up what they did in the opening minutes of the first half. CSU was singeing the silk, netting a trio of 3s to start the game. But, unable to sustain, the Rams tailed off, shooting just 23.1 percent in the second half.
UNM bested CSU in the second half, however, hitting 6-of-11 from beyond the arc.
Beggin said CSU’s pesky defense — coupled with its early blistering shooting — gave the Lobos fits.
“Colorado State’s a great team — their record doesn’t necessarily show it,” Beggin said. “Once we settle in and helped each other on defense, then we kind of got rolling.”
