By Jerry Briggs
Special for The JB Replay
The last-place UAB Blazers shot 64 percent in a dominant third quarter in Birmingham on Tuesday night and then cruised to an 81-69 victory over the UTSA Roadrunners in American Conference women’s basketball.
Leading by five at the half, UAB (9-13, 2-8) went on an 18-4 run in the first five minutes after halftime and outscored UTSA 27-14 in the third behind the scoring of Cali Smallwood and freshman Sofia Munoz.
In the end, the Blazers’ 81 points represented a season high for a UTSA opponent.
With the win, Randy Norton-coached UAB claimed its second victory in a row and its first in the opening game of the second half of the conference slate. Defense-minded UTSA (10-11, 5-5) yielded 56 percent shooting for the game in losing its second straight.
The defending conference champion Roadrunners, who opened conference play at 3-0, have dropped five of their last seven.
The last two Roadrunners’ losses have come in the last four days. UTSA dropped a 65-55 decision to the first-place Rice Owls on Saturday in San Antonio and then had a quick turnaround for the Tuesday night game in Alabama.
UTSA will play next on Saturday in Oklahoma against the Tulsa Golden Hurricane, an upper-tier team in the conference. The Golden Hurricane (16-6, 8-2) also played Tuesday night and won on the road at Wichita State, 75-65.
“It’s not going to get any easier,” UTSA coach Karen Aston said on the team’s radio broadcast. “I thought that this whole time, that every game was going to be like this, and it’s going to boil down to … ‘How hungry are you?’ and, ‘How bad do you want to win? Does it mean that much to you?’
“I mean, everybody (in the conference) is fighting, just to get in the tournament. You know, maybe we’ve hit a lull. I don’t really know. We looked like maybe we’ve hit a little bit of a wall. We got to figure out how to re-energize ourselves.”
Aston acknowledged that she doesn’t really have an answer on how to get the team to boost its energy level.
“We just don’t look like we have enough gas in our tank right now,” she said.
Forward Molly Moffitt led six UAB players in double figures with 19 points. Smallwood added 15 and Journey Armstead 13. Eleecia Carter scored 12, while Monae’ Duffy and Munoz had 11 apiece.
For UTSA, point guard Ereauna Hardaway produced 17 points and five assists. Forward Cheyenne Rowe added 16, but after halftime, the Roadrunners’ scoring leader was hounded by a collapsing UAB defense and was held to five.
Idara Udo, in her third game back after sitting out six weeks with an injury, scored 12. The Roadrunners shot 41 percent from the field.
Records
UTSA 10-11, 5-5
UAB 9-13, 2-8
Coming up
UTSA at Tulsa, Saturday, 2 p.m.
First half
The Blazers shot 48.1 percent from the field and knocked down five 3-pointers en route to a 32-27 lead on the Roadrunners.
It was a disappointing showing for the Roadrunners, who entered the game in sixth place in the American against the Blazers, who were in last (13th).
Molly Moffitt and guard Eleecia Carter both scored nine points to lead the Blazers. Moffitt connected on four of nine from the field and Carter three of five, all from 3-point distance.