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SALT LAKE CITY — Maty Wilke was a menace, no matter how you looked at it.
The sophomore guard frustrated a visiting Oregon team with her defense, and then converted at a high clip on the other end of the floor to finished with 17 points, including five 3-pointers, to help the Utah women pull away for a 70-48 win Sunday afternoon.
Oregon's zone defense created quite the problem for Utah, and it took approximately 20 minutes, Utah head coach Lynne Roberts said, before the team finally figured it out and settled in against Oregon's length.
"I think it just took us a little bit of time to kind of figure out where the gaps were going to be and how to move for one another. ... Unfortunately, took a little longer than I had hoped, but we figured it out," Roberts said.
Wilke was a key catalyst into Utah (18-7, 8-5 Pac-12) staying in front of Oregon despite shooting below 40% through three quarters. Her five 3-pointers for the game accounted for nearly half of the team's 12 triples on a 35% shooting from behind the arc.
Oregon (11-14, 2-10 Pac-12) outscored Utah 18-17 in the third quarter, and eventually cut a 14-point lead to 3 as the Utes looked to be losing any momentum it had built up going into the quarter. But Wilke staved off defeat, and then the team pulled away for good in the fourth quarter with an all-around dominant performance.
The Ducks only managed 7 points in the fourth quarter and finished the game shooting 2-of-10 as the Utes built up a one-time 24-point lead with five minutes left to play.
Though Wilke was big for the Utes, it was junior forward Jenna Johnson who initially gave Utah some early offense. The Minnesota native had a quick 10 points on 4-of-4 shooting before finishing the half with 16 points before the halftime break.
Johnson added to her total in the fourth quarter and finished with a 20 points on 9-of-13 shooting, including 2-of-3 from 3-point range, and five rebounds to lead the team in scoring. Johnson's performance helped her cross the 1,000-point club, becoming the fourth player on Utah's roster this season to cross the barrier.
"I thought Jenna was steady as always, got her 1,000th point, which is a big deal," Roberts said. "Took me every single game of my senior year to do that. She's just a junior, but proud of her and what she means for this program and what she has done for us and it's not over."
The visiting Ducks locked up Alissa Pili in the post, largely thanks to its zone defense, and held the reigning Pac-12 Player of the Year to just 2 points in the first half. But Johnson was the cure to all ills for a team that shot just 39% in the first half yet controlled a 12-point lead at the halftime break.
Pili found success in the second half, in part due to Utah's 3-point shooting relaxing the Oregon defense, and finished the afternoon game with 16 points, eight rebounds and three assists in the win.
Utah finished the game only shooting 41% from the field, but managed only six turnovers and had 23 assists on the team's 28 made field goals. The Utes also managed 19 points off the Ducks' 16 turnovers.
