Eaton leads Cougars past the Wolf Pack to remain undefeated

RENO, Nev. – Lexi Eaton led BYU women’s basketball to a 69-61 win on the road at Nevada Tuesday evening to remain undefeated.

“This was a good win for us,” BYU head coach Jeff Judkins said. “I thought Lexi did a great job for us after being sick. She gave us a big lift. I thought our bench played really well tonight. Stephanie (Rovetti), Ashley (Garfield), Xojian (Harry) all played really well. We were able to get Jennifer back in the second half and she played really well. Defensively, we played one of our best games.”

Eaton led the team with 24 points to go along with three rebounds and a team-high four assists. Jennifer Hamson was the only other Cougar to score in double digits, putting up all 12 of her points in the second half. Morgan Bailey led the team in rebounds with 11. Kylie Maeda contributed a career-high eight points in the victory.

BYU (7-0) finished the game shooting just 35.7 percent from the floor compared to 37.7 percent for Nevada (4-4). While the Cougars dominated the rebound category in the first half, the Wolf Pack came out strong in the last 20 minutes and ended up leading in that category 45-39. BYU turned the ball over 11 times compared to Nevada’s 24.

Kim Beeston (1), Maeda (2) and Eaton (1) all gave BYU its first 12 points of the game from consecutive 3-pointers.

Hamson was forced to take a seat on the bench within the first six minutes of the game after collecting her second foul. The Wolf Pack was unable to take advantage of her absence, as their 6-foot-8 Mimi Mungedi scored just six points and grabbed only one board in the half.

The Cougars opened up their first double-digit lead at 24-14 after Ashley Garfield completed a three-point play at the charity stripe.

BYU started the first half shooting 6 for 9 from the 3-point line, with Eaton making half of those to tie a career high.

After BYU took a 12-point lead, Nevada came back with an 11-1 run to cut the Cougar lead to just two at 34-32 to close out the first half.

BYU began the second half on a 13-2 run, ending with a Hamson layup to give the Cougars another double-digit lead at 47-34.

The Cougars had their largest lead of the game at 53-38 after Stephanie Rovetti ran the court, faked a pass and laid the ball in the hoop for a layup.

From that point, BYU maintained around a 10-point lead as both teams traded buckets. The Wolf Pack couldn’t put together a long enough run in the end as the Cougars closed out the game, taking it 69-61.

BYU stays on the road as they head to Nebraska to take on Creighton this Saturday at 2 p.m. CST. Links to live stats will be available on the BYU women’s basketball schedule page.

Postgame Notes

Team

For the sixth time this season, BYU dished out more assists than its opponent. The Cougars finished the game with a total of 17 compared with 10 for the Wolf Pack.

BYU got 14 points from Nevada’s miscues in the first half and ended the game with 29 from Wolf Pack turnovers.

For the second-straight time, the Cougar women recorded just 11 turnovers, tying for the lowest of the year.

The Cougars won the battle inside, finishing with four more points in the paint, 30 to 26.

For just the first time this season, BYU did not win the blocks category. Against Nevada the Cougar women recorded four while the homestanding Wolf Pack had seven, five coming from their 6-foot-8 junior center, Mimi Mungedi. BYU’s 6-foot-7 senior center, Jennifer Hamson had three of the team’s four blocks

Player

Lexi Eaton led all scorers in the first half of action with 16 points, finishing with a game-high 24. She also pulled down three rebounds and had four assists, which tied for a game high.

Morgan Bailey pulled down eight rebounds in the first 20 minutes of action to lead all players and ended the contest with 11, which tied for game highs.

For the seventh-straight time, Jennifer Hamson recorded double digits in points with 12, despite only playing five minutes in the first half after getting two quick fouls. She also had a team-high three blocks to go along with two steals in the game.

Stephanie Rovetti came off the bench, playing in front of her home fans, and dished out four assists, tying for a team best in that category. She also had four points, three rebounds and two steals in 18 minutes of action.