Cowgirls too tough for Rams

By Richard Anderson
Wyoming Sports.org

Wyoming coach Joe Legerski has maintained that his Cowgirls can’t always rely on their “big three" of sophomore Emma Langford and juniors Aubrey Vandiver and Hillary Carlson. he likes

But when they play well, that's OK, too.

On Saturday, the three were big in many ways, as the Cowgirls rolled past Colorado State 69-52 in the Arena-Auditorium to begin the second half of Mountain West Conference play.

Carlson led the way with 25 points and a career-high 15 rebounds, while Vandiver added 15 and 11, her 12th double double of the season. Langford scored 13 points and dished out five assists, but more importantly, held CSU’s Kim Mestdagh, the league’s top scorer, to just 12 points.

“I’ve never had two players have double doubles in the same game,” Legerski said. “Hillary Carlson was a force on the inside tonight. Twenty-five and 15, just a tremendous effort from Hillary. Aubrey was just as good with 15 and 11.

“When we moved the basketball and had player movement we were very good offensively. When we started standing around, I thought CSU’s pressure started bothering us and we had to get a little better at it.”

The Cowgirls (5-4 MWC, 14-7) overcame a slow start offensively and shut down the Rams in the second half. Wyoming missed its first seven shots of the game, but still led 27-23 at halftime.

Carlson came out the second half and scored nine straight points and 11 of the team's first 13, as Wyoming opened up a double-digit lead. The Cowgirls maintained a 10-15 point lead for much of the second half, before opening it up in the end.

“We just wanted to come out strong, me especially, and get on a run,” Carlson said. “I was just trying to help my team do that.”

Vandiver said it was important to get Carlson going in the second half because in the last couple of games they haven’t come out strong in the second half.

“To get Hill established like that and to get their players in foul trouble, it made it much easier all night to go to her. She really stepped up,” Vandiver said.

Legerski said the Cowgirls had to establish themselves in the first four minutes of the second half. To do that, they had to have more energy than CSU, something they didn’t have to begin the game.

“CSU came out with a great deal of energy to begin the game,“ he said. “We were a little too ready to play and not as focused as we needed to be. We needed to try to get everybody relaxed, calmed down and play like we needed to play. We needed to establish Hillary and she gave us a big lift. Not only that, she delivered. it’s one thing to be able to take the basketball inside, but when we’re coming away with points, Aubrey and Hillary just did a tremendous job at the block.”

A few times in the game, Legerski said he just had to remind his players about having more energy.

“ I’m sure there were times when people could hear me yelling having energy," Legerski said. “We needed that to be able to come out and get our offense going, as well as what we needed to do defensively.”

Mestdagh went into the game averaging 17.0 points, but was just 4 of 13 from the field, hitting 2 of 8 3-pointers against Wyoming.

“Emma Langford did a tremendous job on Mestdagh, she shadowed her,“ Legerski said. “She is a tremendous offensive player. Emma comes out 36 minutes and has to defend her on the defensive end. I thought the big three of Hillary, Aubrey and Emma played well.”

“She’s a great player, it was tough to chase her around the floor,” Langford added.

Wyoming dominated play inside the paint, outscoring the Rams 42-18.

“I think the key was to just match their physicality,” Vandiver said. “They were very tough inside and they were very aggressive. It was important to match that because at UNLV, at times, we weren’t as strong.”

Natalie van den Adel added 10 for Colorado State (3-6, 11-11), which shot just 29 percent from the field (18 of 61).

CSU coach Kristen Holt said it was a game of two halves.

“I didn’t think that we did everything right in the first half, but I really thought that we scrapped,” Holt said. “After halftime, we didn’t look like we were inspired. We didn’t look like we were four points down and capable of winning the game. I felt like our momentum was totally taken away in the second half.”

The Cowgirls will look to keep that momentum on Wednesday when they host San Diego state.