Utah women ride hot shooting to overcome turnovers, defeat Utah Valley 75-52

SALT LAKE CITY — It was a turnover-filled night at the Huntsman Center on Tuesday.

But Utah overcame the many turnovers with its hot shooting to pull away for a 75-52 win over Utah Valley in the in-state matchup.

Both teams struggled with turnovers throughout the contest, though Utah was able to capitalized on Utah Valley's giveaways with 15 points on the other end. Utah tallied 22 turnovers of their on in the win, while the Wolverines gave it away 16 times.

"I knew they were going to have a game plan, and they were going to come in here and test us," Utah head coach Gavin Petersen said. "A lot of unforced turnovers. Some of that lingered and carried over to the second half, but our execution was a lot better."

The Utes utilized the 3-point shot to take an early lead, with Maty Wilke and Lani White combining for six first-half makes. Wilke knocked down her first three attempts, giving Utah an early shooting advantage, and finished with 15 points on 5-of-12 shooting — all 3-point makes.

"We obviously knew they're going to do some 1-3-1 (defense)," Wilke said. "As shooters, that always makes me smile, because usually those corner threes are open, and I think our teammates did a good job when we were being aggressive and moving the ball to find those open threes. I feel like that's where a lot of our shots came from."

White led the Utes with 16 points on 55% shooting as a team, while contributing five rebounds and two assists as one of three players in double figure for Utah.

While Utah outshot the Wolverines from 3-point range, shooting 13-of-25 behind the arc, Utah Valley finished just 4-of-10.

Reese Ross grabbed 11 rebounds to go along with four assists, while Chyra Evans did a little bit of everything for the Utes in just her second game back from injury. Evans scored 10 points, and added five rebounds, two assists and a block in just 18 minutes of action.

Kaylee Headrick led Utah Valley in scoring, pouring in a game-high 18 points in the loss, while Cambree Blackham helped jumpstart the Wolverines offense in the third quarter with a pair of buckets to finish with 11 points.

Utah entered the halftime break with a 30-20 lead before Utah Valley cut the deficit in half. The Utes then went on a run of their own to end the quarter, and then used that momentum to pull away in the fourth quarter.

Utah outscored the Wolverines in every quarter entering the final period of play, and that trend continued for the Utes with a 23-13 effort to cruise to the finish line.

"Really proud of our team putting 40 minutes together," Petersen said. "Just tremendous respect for what they do. I think they're going to win a lot of games in their conference."

The Utes totaled 21 assists on 28 made shots to improve to 3-0 on the season before hosting No. 23 Washington on Saturday. The Wolverines dropped to 2-1, with a chance to bounce back Friday when Pepperdine comes to Orem.

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