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UTEP women’s basketball came out a little rusty at the beginning with some unforced turnovers, but cleaned it up defensively and never looked back and crushed the Texas-Permian Basin Falcons 75-58.
Led by junior guard Chrishauna Parker who came off the bench and produced a double-double with 12 points and 12 rebounds; she added 3 assists to her total. El Paso native Stacie Telles led all Miners in minutes played and converted her three shot attempts from beyond the arc to finish with 12 points.
“Stacie had a much better night than she did in the first outing,” said head coach Keitha Adams. “We are still learning what our new players can do and its good that most of them had a good game”
Senior center Kristene Vitola saw 18 minutes of action in her first official game since her ACL injury from last season.
“I think we had a lot of turnovers, sloppy possessions and missed rebounds,” said guard Kelli Willingham. “We got to clean it up.”
In the second half, it was the all-around play of Parker with her rebounding and scoring.
“She was our best rebounder and she does that for us on a consistent basis and she played hard tonight.” Adams said.
The Miners came out of the half using more of the zone defense. They went on an 8-0 run and led as much as by 28 points.
However as Adams tried to give minutes to all of the players during the game, the game became sloppy in the last 10 minutes and saw their lead trimmed to 18. Only two Miners played less than nine minutes in the game, and the bench contributed with 49 points.
The Falcons relied on their guards Giselle Loya and El Pasoan Valerie Barriga to produce points; they combined for 30 in the game.
“I think we got outhustled in a lot of ways,” Adams said. “We know that we have to get really good practice on Sunday and Monday, we have a lot of areas we need to improve on.”
The Miners will face their first important test on Nov. 12 when they host rival New Mexico State, followed by Kansas State on Nov. 16.
“It’s a good win, it’s in the books and we’ll move forward. We have a big week next week.” Adams said.
