Wyoming-Seattle Final Stats | Wyoming Season Stats | Postgame Video
LARAMIE, Wyo. (March 16, 2017) — The Wyoming women's basketball team (22-9 overall, 13-5 MW) will advance to the second round of the WNIT after a 68-52 victory over the Seattle Redhawks (15-18, 10-4 WAC) on Thursday night.
Four Cowgirls finished the night in double-figures led by sophomore Bailee Cotton. She recorded 16 points and nine rebounds. Junior Natalie Baker followed with 14 points and nine rebounds. Freshman Taylor Rusk came off the bench and finished with 11 points and four points, while senior Hailey Ligocki chipped in ten points. Wyoming shot 27-52 (.519) from the field, 9-10 (.900) from the free throw line and out rebounded the Redhawks, 38-27.
"I was very happy with the way we played offensively tonight," head coach Joe Legerski said. "It's been a while since we've been in postseason. One of things we talked about that this team is young, we need to experience games at this level and what it means to play in postseason. We got off to a really good start then I thought foul trouble really affected what we wanted to do. We had to sit people, but Riikka (Kujala) came in and did a nice job, Skyler (Snodgrass), Marleah (Campbell), so we had players that helped us out. Then the second half, our execution was better, which you could see in our shooting. We attacked the zone, made good reads and finished, then got in to our motion and got easy shots. Bailee (Cotton) kept us in the game early with her scoring, grabbing rebounds and then two big offensive rebounds by Natalie (Baker) were key. Overall, good offensive and defensive effort against a team that's been winning."
Freshman Kamira Sanders finished with a game-high 17 points in 32 minutes of play for Seattle. Junior Jacinta Beckley and Senior Kaylee Best each chipped in eight points while redshirt junior Alexis Montgomery brought down six rebounds. The Redhawks were 19-58 (.328) from the field and 2-14 (.143) from beyond the arc.
Out of the break, the Cowgirls stretched the lead back to double-digits, 36-25, through the first media timeout. A basket by Sanders stopped a scoreless stretch to make it 36-27 which was answered with Wyoming scoring nine of 13 to make it 45-31 with 3:11 left in the third. Seattle went on a 6-2 run to make it a 10-point contest 47-37 after three. Started by a Rusk three, the Cowgirls went on a 15-4 run to extend it to its largest lead of 21, 62-41, with 4:06 on the clock. Despite being outscored the remainder of the game, Wyoming went on to the 68-52 victory.
Wyoming was hot early building a 10-0 lead, while shooting 4-7 from the field. Free throws by Sanders at the 5:27 mark got the Redhawks in the scoring column which started an 11-0 run to give them their first lead, 11-10. A basket by Rusk ended a six-minute scoring drought to help put the Cowgirls back up 12-11. The teams traded a couple of baskets followed by 11 straight points by the Cowgirls to pull ahead by ten, 25-15. Lewey scored a layup to end a seven-minute scoreless stretch to make it 25-17 through the media timeout. Seattle strung together the next seven of eight points to close the deficit to two, 26-24. Ligocki hit a shot under a minute to go with Wyoming taking a 28-24 halftime lead.
Baker led the Cowgirls with six points followed three others with four. Cotton recorded five rebounds. Wyoming was 11-23 (.478) from the field, 3-7 (.429) from three and out rebounded Seattle, 19-13. The Redhawks were led by Sanders who had seven, while Montgomery brought down four boards. SU was 9-28 (.321) from the field and 5-5 (1.00) from the free throw line.
Wyoming will now host the Washington State Cougars on Saturday. The game is set for 2 p.m. MT at the Arena-Auditorium.
Tickets are on sale at the Wyoming Athletic Ticket Office and are priced at $14/adult & $10/youth. Tickets can be purchased online, over the phone at 307-766-7220 or in person 9am-5pm at the Wyoming Athletic Ticket Office. Season ticket holders will have until Friday at 5 p.m. to claim their regular-season seats for this post-season event.
Tickets may be claimed online at GoWyo.com/tickets by logging into "My Account" and then clicking "post-season applications". Tickets may also be purchased by visiting or calling the ticket office. Any unclaimed season ticket holder seats will be released to the public at 5 p.m. on Friday.
Student tickets will also be available for $5/ticket. Students would need to show their WYO-Wildbunch App or a student ID to purchase. Students can purchase these tickets in person at the Wyoming Athletic Ticket Office or at the Student Union Box Office.
