The UTEP Miners Women’s Basketball team lost 65-49 to the UAB Blazers at the Bartow Arena in Birmingham Alabama on Saturday afternoon.
The game started the right way for the Miners as they had a 7-0 lead, but UAB made a 8-0 run midway in the quarter and they ended up with a 13-12 lead after the first quarter.
The Miners would battle back and forth with the Blazers in the second quarter and at halftime UAB would have a 25-20 lead.
The game was decided in the third quarter as UTEP struggled from the field and UAB started it on 9-0 run. From there, they pulled away from the Miners as they outscored them 19-7 in the quarter giving them a 17 point lead after the third.
In the fourth, the Miners outscored UAB 22-21 but the damage had been done as UAB got a 16 point win over UTEP.
A couple of key factors that lead to the Miner loss was the fact that UTEP only shot, 30% from the field. They missed nine free throws, and they only scored 11 points off the 20 turnovers that they forced and they only had 6 assists in the game.
The Miners were lead by Katia Gallegos as she had 19 points, with 2 rebounds and 3 assists. Elina Arike had 9 points and 4 rebounds. For UAB, they had two players in double figures as Margaret Whitley scored 19 points and Emily Klaczek had 18 points.
With the loss, UTEP is now 14-12 overall and 6-10 in C-USA play. They remain in 5th place in the Western Division.
This was the first of three games on the road for the Miners to end the regular season. They will next travel to take on Rice on Thursday 3/2, tipoff is a 6 p.m and you can listen to the game on the free UTEP Miners App with Mando Medina having the call.