DENTON, Texas - The University of Denver women's basketball team (14-11, 9-5 SBC) snapped a five-game losing streak with a 65-58 road-win over the North Texas Mean Green (7-19, 4-11 SBC) on Saturday evening in the Super Pit in Denton, Texas.

Four Pioneers finished in double figures as sophomore Kaetlyn Murdoch (Temple, Texas) led the way with 20 points, while also grabbing nine rebounds and blocking five shots. Junior Britteni Rice (Pampa, Texas) finished the night with 19 points and five rebounds, while also shooting a perfect 6-of-6 from the charity stripe.

"We had a great performance from our two Texas kids tonight and I am very proud of the way our offense responded to some tough defending by North Texas," said head coach Erik Johnson. "We are still struggling with taking care of the ball and that is something we have to work on as we head into the final stretch of our conference schedule."

Rounding out the scoring for Denver was junior Brianna Culberson (Jefferson City, Mo.) and senior Ashly Robinson (Bloomington, Minn.) as they added 13 and 10 points, respectively. Robinson also finished with 12 rebounds for her second double-double of the season.

After shooting 42.3 percent from the line in the first half, the Pioneers regrouped in the second half to shoot 52.0 percent as Murdoch scored 10 points and Rice and Culberson both added nine points each.

Freshman Jasmine Godbolt led the Mean Green with 17 points and 14 rebounds, while Brittney James and Denetra Kellum added 13 and 11 points, respectively.

Denver returns home to host SBC West Division leading Arkansas-Little Rock on Wednesday night in Magness Arena with tip-off scheduled for 7 p.m. The Pioneers will host their annual Pink Zone event Wednesday night, which is a global initiative by the Women's Basketball Coaches' Association to raise breast cancer awareness on the court, across campuses, in the communities and beyond. Denver will honor Denver Post columnist and breast-cancer survivor Penny Parker along with others prior to the start of the game.

Pioneer Notes:

• Murdoch's 20 points extends her consecutive games with double figure points to 15 and marks the fifth game this season that she has finished with 20-plus points.
• Rice's 19 points extends her consecutive games in double figures to 19 games.
• Culberson's 13 points for the night marks the 24th game this season that she has finished in double figures. Culberson has scored in double-digits in the Pioneers' last five games.
• Murdoch also finished the night with five blocks, extending her streak with one or more blocks to five games. To date, the sophomore has 145 career blocks, ranking her fourth all-time.
• With her perfect 6-of-6 showing from the free-throw line, Rice now has 207 career made free throws ranking her seventh all-time in the Pioneer record books. The junior also has the best free-throw percentage of all-time with a career free-throw percentage of 82.8 percent (207-250).
• Denver held the advantage in rebounds (40-37), assists (10-7) and blocks (6-2).

 

- PIONEERS -