Photo by Austin Lewis // Staff Photographer
Middle Tennessee (8-6, 2-1 C-USA) traveled to San Antonio to take on UTSA (5-9, 1-3 C-USA) in another men’s and women’s home and away double-header. The Roadrunners would cut the Blue Raiders lead late in the game, but Middle Tennessee’s veteran leadership led the team to a 74-63 conference victory.
The Blue Raiders jumped out to an early 11-4 lead behind Ty Petty, who finished with a game-high 20 points while grabbing four rebounds and dishing out six assists. Middle Tennessee ended the first quarter up 18-11 behind strong post play from Rebecca Reuter, who finished with five points and three rebounds.
At on point Middle Tennessee held a 13-point lead, behind Alex Johnson’s eight second quarter points. Johnson would finish with 19 points and six rebounds in 27 minutes of action.
“I am extremely pleased with our basketball team,” Head Coach Rick Insell told MT Athletics after the game. “We really needed this road win against a tough UTSA team. The young ladies responded. We had great leadership. We battled on the boards. We competed. We showed great poise when they cut it to five in the fourth quarter. We overcame not having our leading scorer for a large portion of the game. I am really, really happy with this performance today.”
The Roadrunners wouldn’t go away easily, ending the 3rd quarter on a 7-2 run that cut the Blue Raiders’ lead to 51-46. Tesha Smith scored all 11 of her points in the third quarter, even though she played a total of 33 minutes.
The Blue Raiders would stay poised in the final minutes of the fourth quarter behind Petty’s court vision and Brea Edwards’ 11-point quarter to finish of the Roadrunners in San Antonio. Edwards would finish the game with 14 points and four rebounds.
Middle Tennessee gets a few days off to recoup before taking on the Charlotte 49ers (8-5, 1-1 C-USA) on Jan. 14 at 6:30 p.m. at the Murphy Center.
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