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The New Mexico women’s basketball team continued its domination of in-state rival New Mexico State with a 65-55 victory on Saturday at The Pit.
UNM (4-4) has won 34 of the last 35 battles between the two rival schools, including 12 straight overall.
“Rivalries are always stressful on coaches,” head coach Yvonne Sanchez said. “I’m very pleased with the win.”
UNM forward Khadijah Shumpert, who hit 4 of 7 field goals for 10 points, said that the reason they were able to send NMSU away from the Pit with a loss for the 17th consecutive time was due to game plan execution.
“It’s very important to win a rivalry game, especially when New Mexico State is in the same state as us,” Shumpert said.
The Lobos’ first bucket of the game was a deep 3-ball from sophomore guard Bryce Owens, which started a 7-0 run to start the game. UNM hit 50 percent (3 of 6) of its 3-point attempts for the night.
The Aggies called for a timeout and were able to put a run of their own together, bringing the game within one, trailing 7-6.
The Lobos then began to heat up from the field, going on an 11-point run to bring the lead up to 18-6 in the first half.
UNM went into the locker room ahead after its freshman center Kianna Keller hit a last second 3-pointer, giving UNM a 34-27 advantage at intermission.
The second half played out much differently for the Lobos, as they missed nine of their 18 second half free throws and seemingly had the whistle consistently called against them in the latter part of the game.
UNM ended up with 16 personal fouls that night, eight of which came during the second half of play. Sanchez expressed her displeasure at sending the Aggies to the line 22 times throughout the match, but NMSU was unable to capitalize, hitting just half of its chances at the charity stripe.
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Lobo guard Antiesha Brown put the Lobos up by 15 points with 10:33 remaining in the game, but the late foul trouble and poor foul shooting nearly squandered UNM’s double digit lead. Brown scored a game-high 23 points.
The Aggies (3-6) would come within six, then struggled to sink foul shots and ran into foul problems of their own.
UNM walked away with the 65-55 win with solid shooting from the field down the stretch and without having any players foul out.
The Aggies were only able to make 20 of their 60 shots.
