“Woooooh! That’s my opening
statement,” said New Mexico head coach Yvonne Sanchez upon
entering the press
room. “It feels good. A lot of people deserve this. The fans
deserved it
because they have been terrific. The staff deserves it because
they are
unbelievable and they deserve it about as much as anybody. The
players
definitely deserve it.”
“It feels good to get in the
locker room with
everyone smiling and having an overall good game,” said Sanchez.
The Lobo women
committed a
season-low seven turnovers and forced Air Force into 19 while
allowing the
Falcons just 18 points in the first half – the second time UNM
(7-14, 1-6 MWC)
had done that against an opponent this season.
The Lobos got
scoring from
10-of-11 players and produced a season-high 19 assists and
grabbed 13 steals
from Air Force (5-17, 0-7). The Lobo bench also played a big
part, outscoring
the Falcon reserves 20-2.
“Lauren
(Taylor) comes off
the bench--and she could easily start for us--but she comes off
the bench
because she gives us spark and she scores,” said Sanchez.
“Lauren has a knack
for scoring and I know that she didn’t shoot as well as she
would have liked to
today, but she went in there and hit some free throws. Even with
Lauren not
hitting a field goal, Ashley (Rhoades) comes in there and goes
2-for-2 and
Emily (Stark) comes in there and goes 3-for-6 and we get to the
free-throw
line. When we get other bench points that’s what you really
want.”
The Falcons
came in and
tried to play a physical game against the Lobos, but only
succeeded in getting
themselves into foul trouble, picking up 23 personal fouls to
UNM’s 14 and
having to players - starting forward Dymond James and back-up
post Megan
O’Neil, who earned the enmity of Lobo fans with her physical, at
times straight
up dirty, play.
“You definitely
have to be
like that at the college level, if you even want to get open you
have to,” said
Durbin of the physical play. “If you’re going to be a shooter,
you have to like
the contact.”
UNM opened with
a 7-2 burst
and absorbed a 4-0 Air Force run before going on a 13-6 run to
take over the
game. Aided by poor shooting by the Falcons, the Lobos pushed
the lead all the
way to 33-13 and took a 37-18 lead into halftime.
Air Force
started the second
half with 6-0 run, but Sanchez called a timeout and UNM came out
focused on its
full court defense and kept the Falcons at bay.
“I thought it
worked out
well and starting in our 3-2 press worked out well, too because
then you’re up
and you’re moving around and not going back and waiting for your
player,” said
Sanchez. “Moving around a little bit more helped us just to get
back to not
having a slow start in the second half. And again, we gave up
two fast-break
baskets so I called a quick timeout because I didn’t want to see
our lead
dwindle.”
Sanchez and her
players now
say they are focused on playing well in the second half of the
season, starting
Saturday when UNM welcomes Boise State to The Pit for a 2 p.m.
game.
“We need to
keep the same
passion and intensity to win,” said Durbin. “Just because we won
doesn’t mean
we can relax. A lot of the games that we played on the roads
were not our best
showings, but now that we’re home a lot more, we’re excited to
get more wins.”
UNM began MWC
play with a
65-46 loss at Boise on Jan. 11, a game in which Sanchez said her
team “didn’t
play well and they played extremely well.
Durbin said a
similar start
to the Air Force game was a key.
“The most
important thing is
that we get off to a fast start,” said Durbin. “We have to make
the initial
contact and not let them get us on our heels. We’re going to
play hard like we
did tonight, and if they (the fans) want to watch a team play
hard and get a win
they should be here.”