The women’s basketball team had 22 turnovers against Pepperdine, and head coach Yvonne Sanchez said that didn’t help her team.
“It’s hard with limited players,” Sanchez said. “We wanted to try and win that in overtime, but that didn’t work. We had six turnovers at halftime and 22 for the game; you’re not going to win basketball games that way.”
UNM led by eight with 4:19 left in regulation time, but injuries caused the team to use the same five players on the court for the last 14:37 of the game. Pepperdine ran out as the winner, 59-56, and the Lobos are now 3-4.
Pepperdine led for a combined 2:20 of the game, but the Lobos turned over the ball eight times in the last 8:19 of the game and only scored six points during that span.
In the last play of the first half, senior guard Nikki Nelson went down with an apparent knee injury and didn’t return. The injury left Sanchez with only eight players to choose from for the rest of the game.
The Lobos came out and controlled the first half, taking an eight-point lead into halftime. Junior guard Caroline Durbin finished the half with 14 points and scored 16 in total.
The Lobos shot just 31.8 percent from the field and four Lobo players finished the game playing at least 37 minutes.
“It’s a valiant effort by those kids,” Sanchez said. “I was down to five players, and they gave it everything they had, but we just fell short.”
In the second half, Pepperdine started to play full-court press defense and UNM turned the ball over 10 times as their lead dwindled away.
With the score tied at 52 with 16 seconds remaining, Durbin had a chance to win the game but failed to make her shot, sending it into overtime.
Senior forward Porche Torrance finished with a career-high 16 point and 15 rebounds. She said the team grew tired as the game progressed.
“I just think we got a little rattled and lost our focus a little bit.” Torrance said. “We need to relax and just play basketball.”
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The Lobos turned the ball over six times in overtime. Junior guard Jayme Jackson scored four of her career-high 14 points in overtime, but she was the only one who scored.
With 23 seconds remaining, UNM had a chance to win the game again, but Durbin missed her second attempt. The rebound fell to Lobo junior guard Jourdan Erskine and appeared fouled on her follow-up attempt, but no call was made, and the Lobos lost their third game of the season.
Many of the 6,663 fans left the stadium booing the official;
Pepperdine had only six fouls called against them in the second half and overtime.
Torrance said the referee should have called more fouls, but didn’t blame the referee for the loss.
“You can’t say the officiating goes to one side,” she said.
“Toward the end, some rebound fouls that we normally get, they didn’t call. I think if we would have limited our turnovers in overtime, it could have helped us out a lot.”
