Vegas Madness: Daugherty's circus shot helps SUU women avoid WAC upset

LAS VEGAS — Cherita Daugherty made just four field goals during regular-season champion Southern Utah's WAC Tournament opener against New Mexico State.

None were bigger than the fourth.

Daugherty beat the buzzer with an off-balance 3-pointer to help SUU women's basketball rally from a 16-point halftime deficit by seventh-seeded New Mexico State, 62-61, Wednesday night at Orleans Arena in Las Vegas.

The graduate senior and junior college transfer from Vancouver, Washington, finished with 14 points on 4-of-13 shooting, and Tomekia Whitman led SUU (21-9) with 18 points and six rebounds.

But this is March — and this is the WAC. So down 62-61 with two seconds left, Daugherty took an inbounds pass from Samantha Johnston, fought through a defender near the left wing, and heaved a no-look, one-handed shot that looked more like a shot put that connected with the bottom of the net as the final horn sounded on the third quarterfinal of the day.

"I just threw it up," said Daugherty, a former softball player who threw a rise ball at the rim, with a shrug. "I wish I could say it was a shot. It was the last couple of seconds, I counted down a little in my head, and I got it off. I was praying."

Well before the moment that made Scott Van Pelt's "Best thing I saw today" on SportsCenter, things were hardly easy for the Thunderbirds, though.

Tayelin Grays scored 13 in the first half, and New Mexico State held the Thunderbirds to 20% shooting en route to a 30-14 halftime lead. The No. 2 seeds wearing the home white uniforms were outrebounded, outclassed and turned over while struggling in nearly every way before the break.

SUU coach Tracy Sanders, the WAC Coach of the Year, wasn't happy — and she let her team know it in the locker room.

"I was pretty hard on this team," she said, "and they responded. That's what is good about this team; they'e responded."

Her leading scorer concurred. But coach wasn't any harder than any one teammate to another, Whitman added.

"We kind of made team goals to do the little things out there, get stops on defense and let it fuel our offense," she said. "I'm a really competitive person, and that's what I love about Coach Tracy. She's not telling us anything we don't already know.

"I knew I could be more physical and more aggressively. I think everybody took that personally."

Daugherty was scoreless from the field on six attempts before the break, and didn't record her first bucket until the middle of the third quarter. But Whitman dropped a 3 to cap a 10-0 run that pulled the Thunderbirds within 32-30 with 1:57 left in the quarter. The senior transfer from Idaho State had 13 points in the third, including 2-of-3 free throws with 12 seconds left that helped Southern Utah to a 36-35 deficit to start the fourth quarter, then capped a 6-0 spurt to open the fourth quarter with an and-one play.

"When I get out there, I just want to do whatever I can for my team," she said. "I struggled a little bit in the first half because I wasn't as aggressive as I wanted to be. I just got out there and got more confident, and my tam supported me the whole way."

That set up a back-and-forth final period, where neither team led by more than 3 until the final minute. Daugherty pulled Southern Utah within one, 55-54, with a strong move inside with 35 seconds left.

The Thunderbirds could get no closer — until the final shot of the game.

"They made a heroic shot, a ball shot with one hand," New Mexico State coach Jody Adams said. "Kudos to the kid who threw it up there. At the end of the day, did we execute? Did we play hellacious defense? We've been fighting all year, and not because we wanted respect. We had pride in what we were doing.

"We just ran out of time."

Southern Utah will face Grand Canyon in a semifinal Friday at 3 p.m. MST on ESPN+. The Lopes rallied to knock off Seattle U. 85-80 behind Aaliyah Collins' 15 points.

"We just played them, so they're fresh in our minds," GCU coach Molly Miller said. "They beat us twice, and I think that's motivation for our team. They're veteran, though; they don't beat themselves.

"It's going to be a great battle, as it has been for the past two games. We just need to rest our minds and our bodies, and come in with a little bit of a revenge matchup. I know our kids are excited for the matchup."

Utah Tech eliminated by California Baptist's second-half push

Two days after the program's first Division I win, Utah Tech women's basketball was ousted from its first WAC Tournament by a second-half rally.

Chloe Webb scored 17 points, and Colorado transfer Sila Finau added 16 points and five rebounds as fourth-seeded California Baptist rallied from a first-half deficit to eliminate fifth-seeded Utah Tech, 81-72, at Orleans Arena.

Breaunna Gillen had 14 points, eight rebounds and nine assists for the Trailblazers, who led by as much as 7 points in the second quarter before CBU rallied in the second half.

The former Copper Hills standout scored in double figures all 31 games of his senior campaign with Utah Tech, with a streak that dates back 43 games. With her first bucket of the game, Gillen became just the third player in Utah Tech women's basketball history to record 1,100 career points — a historic personal mark for a historic season.

"I think it starts with our experience," Gillen said. "Yes, we had never been to the tournament before, but we had that two years of D-I experience behind us. When it was time to come to the tournament, it was our year. We knew what we were getting into, and it was our time to shine.

"Our goal was to get here and win a game, and we did that. It was awesome."

Taylia Stimpson scored a career-high 20 points to lead Utah Tech, who recorded their first postseason win in the program's brief Division I era Monday with a 72-68 win over 12th-seeded Utah Valley in the tournament's opening round. Bingham High alum Maggie McCord added 11 points for the Trailblazers, and Pine View product Avery Papa supplied 10 points and 13 rebounds.

Utah Tech used a 10-0 run to start the second quarter to turn a 16-12 deficit into a 22-0 advantage with 4:56 left in the half. But Dorcas Wu scored on back-to-back 3-pointers, and the Lancers pulled within 34-30 at halftime with a buzzer-beating 3 from Tiena Neale.

CBU carried the momentum into the third quarter, when a 12-1 run pushed the Lancers to a 47-40 lead en route to a 55-44 advantage by the fourth. CBU never trailed again against a Utah Tech teams has depleted roster included ACL injuries to twins Macie and Maddie Warren.

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