The University of Texas at Austin Athletics
Second-half attack lifts Women's Basketball
12.19.2011 | Women's Basketball
Dec. 19, 2011
Megan Fontenot, Texas Media Relations
Blocks, steals, and rebounds allowed Texas to recover its home-court poise, and pull away with a 71-62 victory over feisty North Texas on Saturday night at the Frank Erwin Center.
Gail Goestenkors and the Longhorns began the second half trailing the Mean Green by nine points and shooting just 33.3 percent from the floor. But UT heated up offensively to make 16 of 23 shot attempts, and outscored UNT 32-14 in the paint by game's end.
Defense sparked the Longhorns' offensive surge. Soon after returning for the second half, Ashley Gayle blocked a shot in trademark style, and later sophomore guard Chelsea Bass, who earned her first start of the season, stole the ball from the Mean Green, and passed to Ashleigh Fontenette, who effortlessly guided the ball in the net with a lay- up.
UT finished with 11 steals and 10 blocks, and both theLonghorns and Mean Green totaled 40 rebounds.
"When we make great defensive plays, it gets our offense going," Goestenkors said. "In the second half, we started pressing a little bit and got a couple of steals and block, which I think got our momentum and got our energy up."
UT was lifted by a 26-6 second- half scoring run (14:10-6:22).
Chassidy Fussell provided half of UT's points during that surge, and she led four Longhorns in double-digit scoring with a game-high 20 points on 7-of-12 shooting. The sophomore from Tennessee also hit 2 of 4 from 3-point range.
Cokie Reed scored 10 to go along with seven rebounds, second only to senior Ashley Gayle's game-high 11.
Fontenette controlled the offense with 12 points and nine assists.
"We were fighting back, and we just needed to get over the hump," Fontenette said. "We had great defensive plays and then we just capitalized from there."