Miners off to best start at 7-0 in 81-52 rout of Lamar

Sometimes, statistics lie. With their top four scorers being held below their averages, the Miners had help from the rest of the team in one of their most balanced games of the season. Five players scored above their average and the Miners improved to 7-0, their best start in school history, behind an 81-52 victory against Lamar Dec. 1 at the Don Haskins Center.

"Tremendous effort. I ‘m really proud of our defense and we took care of the ball and rebounded it," head coach Keitha Adams said. "Any time you do that: you rebound, you take care of it and play unselfish, that's some good stuff."

Senior forward Gloria Brown had eight points and nine rebounds, sophomore guard Kelli Willingham had nine points off three 3-pointers and sophomore forward Kayla Thornton had eight points and nine rebounds as the team's three leading scorers for the season. For this game, UTEP played all 15 players on their bench, with just two held scoreless, and was led by junior guard Melisa Mendes' 10 points and senior forward Erika Warren's nine.

On the defensive side, the Cardinals did not have a scorer in double figures as the Miners held their fifth-consecutive opponent to under 60 points. Part of the defensive effort came from Warren and three other players who held Lamar's ninth-leading scorer in school history, junior guard Kalis Loyd to just seven points.

"(Loyd) was up-sized and athletic and I was having trouble moving my feet in practice so this was a good test for me," Warren said. "I think I did pretty good."

After closing the first half with back-to-back threes, UTEP opened the second half on a 14-4 run, hitting their first three of the second half. They allowed just one field goal in the first 5:56 of the half and did not allow Loyd to score in the final 20 minutes. The Miners built their lead to as much as 36 with 4:11 remaining.

Rebounding was key for UTEP, as they outrebounded Lamar 52-30, including 22-9 on the offensive side. That translated to a 25-3 advantage on second-chance points. The Miners also only turned the ball over 11 times, just two more than their season low. They forced 18 takeaways for 24 points.

"Everything starts on defense and that's what we did today. We stopped their offense, played really good defense and then found our open teammates. All we had to do was score," junior forward Kristine Vitola said.

Lamar got on the board first and took an early 5-2 lead but UTEP responded with a 10-0 run before Loyd hit a layup with 14:07 to go. The basket proved to be the Cardinals' last field goal until the 6:26 mark. In between that span, the Miners went on a 9-2 run, with Lamar missing their next 10 shots.

Up 21-13 at that point, UTEP went on another 10-2 run until Lamar hit their next field goal with 2:42 remaining. The Miners finished the half strong, scoring a pair of three-pointers in the final 37 seconds to take a 39-21 lead into the locker room.

UTEP will now hit the road after taking a nine-day break when they take on New Mexico at 2 p.m. Dec. 10 in Albuquerque.

William Vega may be reached at prospector@utep.edu.