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Last season, a lack of depth severely limited the UNM women’s basketball team. This season, depth may be one of the Lobos’ strengths.
UNM’s bench outscored Northern Arizona’s bench 31-1 in a 68-57 win at The Pit on Friday night.
Head coach Yvonne Sanchez said the bench play made the difference in the game.
“That’s huge, when your bench gets you 31 points. I used to always tell my bench 20 points or better, but when they give you 31, that’s excellent,” she said. “There are a lot of good things to take from this game.”
Senior guard Caroline Durbin said the bench took a lot of pressure off of the starters.
“It was great. It’s such a big difference from last year for all the returners — that we can shuffle people in and out and keep the energy high,” she said.
The Lumberjacks (0-1) controlled most of the first half and led 28-21 after freshman center Raven Anderson hit a layup with 5:20 left in the half. But the Lobos responded and ended the first half on a 12-4 run capped by a Durbin jumper to give UNM a 33-32 advantage at halftime.
Freshman forward Khadijah Shumpert said UNM did not anticipate Northern Arizona’s style of play.
“They did actually surprise us. We ran some of their plays during practice, but during the game they didn’t run any of those plays,” she said. “But in the second half, we were able to figure it out.”
The Lobos’ (1-0) depth also helped slow down the reigning Big Sky Conference Player of the Week Amy Patton, who scored 33 points for Northern Arizona, more than half the team’s total.
UNM threw fresh bodies at Patton all night to wear her out.
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Sanchez said Patton was difficult to stop because of the step-back, lean-back jumpers she managed to hit.
“You’d think we didn’t play defense on her (Patton). She’s got an unorthodox shot, but it kept on going in,” Sanchez said. “She did get tired, and after a while we just kept putting people on her and denying her the ball. She almost beat us single-handedly. That’s a heck of a player.”
The Lumberjacks retook the lead briefly in the second half, when Patton hit a jumper for a 34-33 edge. The Lobos finally took command of the game when freshman point guard Bryce Owens hit a 3-pointer to give UNM a 54-45 lead with 11:09 left in the game.
Northern Arizona cut the deficit to 65-57 with 26 seconds left in the game, due in part to UNM’s poor free-throw shooting. As a team, the Lobos went 15-30, including junior guard Sara Halasz’s 6-6 performance at the charity stripe.
Halasz took the court for the first time in 961 days and said she missed playing the last two years.
“It was amazing. I hadn’t played in a really long time, but just being back on the court with my team, it just felt great,” she said.
Durbin, Halasz and Shumpert each scored a team-high 13 points to lead UNM. Shumpert also tallied eight rebounds to lead the Lobos, and Owens played a team-high 35 minutes, scoring nine points and making three assists.
