Cowgirls Dominate Second Half for Border War Win

Marquelle Dent scored a career-high 28 points to lead the Wyoming Cowgirls to a 75-49 victory over the Colorado State Rams in the women's Border War Saturday at the Arena-Auditorium in Laramie.

Dent went 12-19 from the field, which included a 3-pointer. She also dished out three assists and had two steals. Dent scored the first 12 points of the game for UW and had 16 by halftime.

After the game, Dent was asked if she felt she was in the zone. Dent said, "I guess so. They weren't really guarding me. They did that in the last game, and I struggled shooting. So, that was something I wanted to come back and prove, that I could shoot. Credit to my teammates, they were so far out and had to guard all our shooters, so I had wide open (driving) lanes."

Cowgirl head coach Joe Legerski said, "The way Colorado State played us defensively, it was time for Marquelle Dent to step up. She was the one, I believe, scored the first 12 points of the game. Her speed is amazing when she has the basketball in her hands. She got us off to the start that we needed, and then you could see the confidence of this group grow, as the second half went along."

Wyoming (18-7, 9-5) shot 64 percent from the field in the second half, which allowed the Cowgirls to pull away. They also held the Rams to just 30 percent on field goals in the second period.

UW held a 29-25 lead at halftime. Then, Kayla Woodward scored 12 of the first 15 points of the second half. That gave the Cowgirls a 44-33 lead. After a CSU basket, Wyoming went on a 16-5 run. This put UW in control, at 60-40, with nine minutes left in the game.

Wyoming cruised after to the 26-point win after that.

Woodward added 18 points and Katilyn Mileto scored 13 in the victory. The Cowgirls shot 49.1 percent (28-57) from the floor and were 9-18 (50%) from beyond the arc.

Colorado State (21-5, 13-2) was led by Elin Gustavsson with 16 points. The Rams were 21-65 (32.3%) from the field and only 3-20 (15%) from deep.

The Cowgirls victory also prevented the Rams from clinching the Mountain West women's basketball regular season title.

Wyoming is back on the court Wednesday, February 26 at Air Force. The game is set to start at 7 p.m.