Well, it’s official now. The rest of the remaining road in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Tournament goes through Brownson Arena.
After the 60-46 win against eighth-seeded Metro State University-Denver on Tuesday night, the Colorado Mesa University women’s basketball team is guaranteed home-court advantage for the remainder of the tournament. The Mavericks, who won the RMAC Tourney last year and the regular-season title this year, played as if March was the start of a whole new basketball season.
“We still had to get stuff done tonight,” CMU junior guard Kylyn Rigsby said. “So it was just focusing on executing tonight so we can set ourselves even better for Friday, do the same thing to set ourselves up for Saturday and do the same thing to set us up for a regional. So just knowing that there’s a lot more basketball to be played and that we gotta execute now and not worry about what we’ve done.”
Rigsby was three-points away from her season-high 29 points after she went 9-18 from the field and made five three-pointers in the win. The Rifle native earned Honorable Mention honors to the All-RMAC team earlier on Tuesday and then came out and scored the most points out of any player in the opening round of the conference tournament.
“I think when the ball goes through the hole, ya know it gets a little bit bigger,” Rigsby said. “Coach has been telling us all week ‘shoot your shot, step up and be confident,” and everyone had that tonight and I think that was really good to see.”
Kylyn’s offense helped spark an early lead for the Mavericks that they held onto, one way or another, for the entirety of the game. CMU outscored MSU-D in each individual quarter which was different in comparison to their first matchup. The Roadrunners outscored the Mavericks 54-42 after a 28-7 first quarter back on Dec. 13, however, Tuesday saw a complete game from Taylor Wagner’s squad.
“We talked about it before half and in halftime like, ‘girls you gotta benefit with how they’re playing Dani [Turner].’ They’re gonna do that, other things are gonna open up and you just gotta be ready to take your shot.
CMU’s eighth-year head coach was awarded the RMAC Coach of the Year on Tuesday as his team looks to seal their second-straight tournament title and the second back-to-back RMAC Tourney wins under Wagner’s tenure.
Dani Turner was the second-best scorer on the floor behind Rigsby’s season-high 26 points. Turner racked up 20 points, seven rebounds and two steals. The Boca Raton, Fla. native was one of the two CMU players to be named to the All-RMAC First Team. Sydni Brandon was the other.
Brandon also earned her much-deserved RMAC Defensive Player of the Year honors along with her first-team placement. CMU’s sparkplug player added to her total steal season steal count (83) with three takeaways against the Roadrunners .She also grabbed 11 boards and dished out five assists.
Entering the second half, the Mavericks had a 30-24 lead and only built on it in the remaining two quarters. The Roadrunners made only seven field goals and shot 31.7 percent from the field in the second half. Forward Leya Harvey was the only Roadrunner to make it to double digits as she racked up 12 points and six rebounds.
“Going into the fourth quarter we were like, ‘we’re up but let’s not just play like we’re up. Let’s play to win the game.’ We can’t give this lead up, we don’t wanna let [MSU-D] back in the game and we don’t wanna give em any sort of confidence. We just gotta control the game with how we can control it.”
CMU now has a quick turnaround and will play host to Colorado School of Mines on Friday in the first semifinal matchup. When it comes to playing their second tournament game in less than three days, Wagner says his team will benefit from it.
“I think we just need to get in and play. You know everybody’s in the same scenario as us. We just gotta come out and go, ready to play and everybody knows everybody and now it’s gonna see who can execute the most and have the least amount of mistakes,” Wagner said. “Whoever the toughest team is, they will come out and be the winner of this tournament.”
