With conference tournament seedings hanging in the balance and only a few games remaining, revenge was on the docket for the Utah Tech University Trailblazers in one of the biggest rivalry games of the season Feb. 27.
The last time they played the Southern Utah University Thunderbirds Feb. 13 in Cedar City, the Trailblazers lost a heartbreaker when the T-Birds snatched victory from the jaws of defeat by scoring a layup with less than two seconds left. The final score of that game was 76-74, and the Trailblazers were on the hunt for redemption.
“We have to stay positive,” Madiba Owona, a freshman art major from Bordeaux, France, said. “I think about the moments we play good and we have to correct the mistakes.”
Alumni Night was being celebrated and the Burns Arena clocked 3185 spectators in attendance. Some of these included members of the 1985 national championship winning Dixie State College team, and Thurl Bailey, a former Utah Jazz forward, who opened the game with the national anthem.
With a packed Stampede student section and appearances from the national championship-winning Blaze and cheer teams, the energy for the night was set to be intense.
Noa Gonsalves, a senior recreation sports management major from Lehi, started hot for the Trailblazers and hit three straight 3-pointers. The team made five threes in the first 10 minutes of play, but SUU seemed to always have a response and stayed within a single digit margin.
Fouls plagued the Trailblazers early, and contributors Beon Riley and Justin Bieker were on the bench with two fouls each for the back end of the first half. Tennessee Rainwater filled in and hit two threes, but also fell into foul trouble and was soon on the bench.
The teams were locked in a tight battle and went into the locker room with a 35-34 score.
“I think the main thing was just coming out with energy,” Gonsalves said when asked about the focus during halftime. “But that’s something we need to work on still because we’re a little slow.”
The Trailblazers curbed the foul trouble in the second half and exchanged baskets and the lead. The T-Birds caught fire and jumped to a seven-point lead, but Utah Tech recovered and tied the score at 58 with less than seven minutes left.
SUU kept fighting, and a few big threes combined with more fouls from UT put them up 71-75 with two minutes to go. A few clutch free throws later, and more unfortunately timed fouls, the T-Birds landed a final knockout punch and left victorious, 75-82.
Gonsalves led Utah Tech with 24 points in an impressive 39-minute show. Beon Riley, a senior business major from Chula Vista, California, tallied 14 points, eight rebounds and two steals. Rainwater and Samuel Ariyibi sparked off the bench, with Rainwater clocking seven points and a steal and Ariyibi scoring 12 to go with seven rebounds.
“We couldn’t execute,” Riley said. “[We] just gotta go back to the drawing board. I think we should have tried to play more like a team.”
Currently, the Trailblazers’ only chance to get out of last place in the WAC standings is to win their remaining three games and hope SUU loses theirs. All teams now look to Las Vegas in preparation for the WAC tournament beginning March 11.
