The Fort Lewis College women’s basketball team gave the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference leading CSU-Pueblo ThunderWolves all they could handle for 37 minutes Saturday night. Unfortunately for the Skyhawks, it was the final three minutes that made the difference.
After giving up a double-digit second half lead, the ThunderWolves (21-4, 16-3 RMAC) ran away from the Skyhawks in the final minutes to win 64-54.
CSU-Pueblo freshman Molly Rohrer scored 17 of her game-high 25 points in the first half, and sophomore Tuileisu Anderson finished with 14 in the ThunderWolves’ sixth consecutive win.
Astrea Reed led Fort Lewis with 15 points, while Alyssa Yocky and Dallas Dickerson had 10 in the loss.
“There wasn’t much of a difference between us and them (Saturday) except for those last few minutes,” said Fort Lewis head coach Jason Flores. “Their post player really hurt us in the first half. We made an adjustment at halftime and made it a bit more difficult for her.”
After Rohrer poured in 17 first-half points, Flores changed up the defensive plan for the second half, and it worked.
Fort Lewis (14-10, 10-9 RMAC) threw bodies at Rohrer from all angles and turned up the intensity on defense. An 8-0 third-quarter run was the result, as the stretch of play got the home team back in the game and eventually to within one point.
That’s when the RMAC leaders came alive.
The ThunderWolves never relinquished the lead and closed out the game on a 14-5 run to win their sixth in a row.
“We just went cold and missed some good looks,” Flores said. “We went 0-for-4, and they made four in a row, so we just needed some stops.”
It was a two-woman show in the first half as Rohrer and Anderson combined for 27 of the ThunderWolves’ 34 points. If the Skyhawks were to come back in the second half, they would have to find an answer for the two CSU-Pueblo underclassmen.
Rohrer and Anderson scored the team’s first six points of the second half, and CSU-Pueblo took a double-digit lead with a 6-1 run to start the third quarter.
FLC spent the entire second half chipping into the CSU-Pueblo lead and nearly came all the way back.
When the Skyhawks finally made it a one-possession game, back-to-back 3-pointers by Ashley Piper stretched the ThunderWolves’ lead back to seven. Rohrer put the game away with a series of veteran low-post moves, and it was too late for another FLC comeback.
“(Rohrer) was really good finishing with both hands,” Yocky said. “We’re both freshmen, so there was definitely some added motivation.”
Yocky nearly had a double-double with 10 points and nine rebounds in the loss for Fort Lewis.
jfries@durangoherald.com
