Jan. 29, 2004

Box Score

Despite leading by 15 points early in the second half, the University of Denver women's basketball team could not hold on and fell to the Sun Belt Conference West Division leader South Alabama 62-56 at the Mitchell Center. Denver evened its record at 9-9, 2-4 in the Sun Belt Conference, while USA improved to 15-3, 4-2.

Denver used a 12-1 run in the first half to take a 32-26 lead to the locker room at the intermission, and continued to build a 15-point lead early in the second half. The home team came to life and engineered a 23-8 run to take its first lead with three minutes to play in the game (51-50). USA controlled the end of the game and made its free throws down the stretch to escape with the six-point decision.

Tasha Jones (San Antonio, Texas) led all scorers with 20 points on 9-17 shooting from the field as the Pioneers were 43.9 percent as a team for the game. Whitney Woodard and Donyel Wheeler each scored 19 points to lead the Jaguars.

"I'm proud of the way we played tonight," Head Coach Pam Tanner said. "We played hard and gave it everything we had, but at the end we played not to lose. We are good enough to play with anyone in this league on any given night. We need to play well enough to make it to the Sun Belt Conference tournament."

Denver began the second half with a 9-2 run. Kaitlyn King (Albuquerque, N.M.) led the way with back-to-back scores, and Jones capped the run with a 3-pointer to make the score 43-28. The home team stormed back with a 23-8 run to take a 51-50 lead with three minutes to play. Wheeler scored 13 points in the run to get the Jaguars back in the game. Woodard scored the go-ahead bucket with three minutes to play.

In the first half, after a back-and-forth battle to start, South Alabama got out to a nine-point lead (19-10) on the strength of three straight 3-pointers. Denver responded by notching two consecutive conventional three-point plays en route to a 12-1 run to take a 24-20 lead with five minutes to play in the half. Jones scored nine points in the run, including six straight points to cap the surge. While the Jaguars came back to life, Denver continued its defensive pressure to end the half with a six-point lead 32-26. Jones shot 6-10 from the field to lead all scorers at the halfway point with 13 points.

Denver will continue its southern road swing with a game at West Division foe New Orleans on Saturday at 12 Noon.