Jan. 23, 2003

Box Score

The University of Denver women's basketball team extended its winning streak to four games and stayed atop the Sun Belt Conference West Division standings with a 76-64 win over South Alabama at Magness Arena Thursday. Denver improves to 10-9, 4-1 on the season, while USA falls to 11-7, 3-3.

The Pioneers built a 20-point lead with three minutes to play and coasted to a 12-point victory. After leading by three points at half time (27-24), Denver broke the game open midway through the second stanza with a 14-6 run to make the score 55-42. Sophomore guard Katie Davenport (Albuquerque, N.M./Cibola) buried a three pointer to cap the game-turning run. The Pioneers continued with a 15-8 run to earn their largest lead of the game at 70-50 with 3:16 to play.

"South Alabama is a well-coached team that plays extremely hard, and I knew they could have made a run at any time," Pioneer head coach Pam Tanner said. "I was extremely proud of the team effort we produced tonight. We played as well as we have all season. Hopefully this will be the start of something for us."

Four players scored in double figures for the Pioneers who shot a blistering 60.9 percent from the field, including 66.7 percent from long range on the night. Sophomore center Sarah Cyran (Broomfield, Colo./Broomfield) led the team with a career high 16 points, and had nine rebounds to fall just short of her first career double-double performance. Sophomore Nicky Eason (Carpentersville, Ill./Barrington) added 15 points and seven rebounds, while Davenport finished with 12 points and junior Ragan Neblett (Arvada, Colo./Pomona) added 11.

"We saw a lot of great individual performances tonight," Tanner said. "Sarah Cyran did some nice things; she went to the basket strong and made good shots. She gained a lot of confidence tonight and hopefully this is the first of many great nights for Sarah because she is certainly capable of it."

Preseason all-conference pick Taneisha Russell led the Jaguars with 24 points, and Qiana Mitchell added 14. The usually hot shooting team was held to just 31.3 percent from the field and just 8-26 from three-point range.

The Pioneers will host another important divisional game against New Orleans Saturday at 1 p.m. at Magness Arena. The game is slated as "Kids Day," and all children under 12 receive free admission.