ST. GEORGE — The Southern Utah women’s basketball team saw their season come to an end on Tuesday after a loss in the Big Sky conference tournament quarterfinals to Idaho State. After a first round win over Weber State at the Big Sky conference tournament on Monday, the Thunderbirds could not get past the quarterfinals, losing 70-63.
SUU was only down two at halftime, and they stayed within striking range, but they were unable to get the win. The two teams split their regular season meetings, but the Bengals got the best of the Thunderbirds in the conference tournament.
Harley Hansen led all scorers with 13 points while Rebecca Cardenas scored 12 points.
“Defensively, we did a pretty good job in the first half and in the second half we gave up some threes and put ourselves in a tough spot, but overall I’m proud of our performance and proud of our season,” SUU head coach Tracy Sanders said in a press release. “They were physical with us and they keyed in on Becca and did a good job of denying her. We had some other people step up and make some plays and she worked her tail off to try and do some things for us.”
With the loss on Tuesday, the Thunderbirds fall to 18-13 on the season. The 18 wins is tied for second most in a single season in program history.
In the previous three seasons for SUU, they had 18 wins combined.
“We had some incredible seniors this year and they have really come in and changed the culture,” Sanders said. “Last year we were scared to lose and this year we came in with an expectation of winning every game and so much of it has had to do with these two right here (Hansen and Cardenas) and the competitiveness they have and the energy that they bring.”
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