CEDAR CITY, Utah – The UT Arlington women's basketball team (14-12, 10-6 WAC) survived a late push from Southern Utah (7-18, 5-11 WAC) to extend their winning streak to four games, defeating the Thunderbirds by a final score of 78-70 from inside the America First Events Center on Wednesday night.
 
With the win, the Lady Mavs also extend their road winning streak to three games.
 
11 Lady Mavs saw the floor tonight with 10 of them recording a point and three of them registering double figures led by Gia Adams who produced 20 points on 8-of-15 from the floor and 3-of-6 from deep. This is Adams' 12th straight game recording double digits on the offensive end. She also dished out five assists, snagged four rebounds and had two steals in a team-high 34 minutes.
 
Avery Brittingham had 12 points in 27 minutes of action while pulling down seven rebounds, passing out three assists, having one steal and a team-high two blocks. Adela Valkova had 11 points while grabbing a team-high eight rebounds. She also added another block to her WAC-leading total, giving her 41 for the year now.
 
The Lady Mavs bench recorded 29 points tonight spearheaded by Masengo Mutanda who had nine in 20 minutes of action. Mutanda also matched her season-highs of six rebounds and two steals. Hannah Humphrey chipped in with seven points on 3-of-5 shooting in 10 minutes.
 
The Lady Mavs never trailed at any point during the game with Nya Threatt registering the game's first basket at the 7:59 mark in the first. Southern Utah would tie the game up the very next possession and then a Brittingham layup jump started UTA's best scoring run of the game at 11, putting the Lady Mavs up 13-2. UTA's defensive effort in the first quarter limited the Thunderbirds' offense to only eight points, taking us into the second quarter up 24-8.
 
In the second, the Lady Mavs would find themselves up by 21 points, their largest lead of the game and went into the half up by 17, 44-27.
 
UTA had their best shooting quarter of the game in the third despite going 0-for-3 from deep, managing to shoot 50-percent from the field for the third.
 
The Southern Utah defense held the Lady Mavs to just 13 points in the fourth quarter, but UTA managed to hold off the surging Thunderbirds whose 10-point scoring run in the quarter cut the Lady Mavs lead down to six. But it was too little, too late for the Thunderbirds after two made free throws from Mutanda effectively ended the game with 16 seconds left and putting UTA up by eight points.
 
For the game, the Lady Mavs committed just five turnovers, the fewest they've had all season and the lone game in which they had under 10 turnovers.
 
With the win, the Lady Mavs now have 10 wins in conference play, the first time that has happened in their three seasons in WAC play. Also, the win moves them to 14 wins overall which matches their season total from a year ago. UTA is now 4-0 all-time versus Southern Utah.
 
NEXT UP
The Lady Mavs end the road trip in the Beehive State at Utah Tech on Saturday, Feb. 24, with tipoff slated for 3 p.m. central time.
   
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