Cowgirls Open League Play and New Year with a Win Over Utah State

Pedersen scores 22 in the victory

LARAMIE, Wyo. (Jan. 1, 2025) – The Wyoming Cowgirls opened the New Year and conference play with a wire-to-wire victory Wednesday over Utah State. The Cowgirls, who move above .500 for the first time this season, opened Mountain West play with a 73-53 win over the Aggies.

Wyoming (7-6, 1-0 MW) made four of the first five baskets of the contest to open with an early 10-3 lead. The margin was 10-5 at the first media timeout. After the timeout, both teams traded hoops before Kati Ollilainen’s three-point play pushed the Cowgirl advantage to 15-7. That was the score at the end of the quarter, as well.

The Cowgirls pushed the lead to double digits to open the second before USU would respond with back-to-back 3-pointers. After back-to-back hoops from McKinley Dickerson, the two teams traded baskets as the offense in the second began to pick up. Utah State would call a timeout with 6:07 left in the half after an Emily Mellema 3-pointer made it 26-17 in favor of UW.

Following the timeout, the lead was lengthened to 16, forcing another Aggies timeout with 3:41 remaining in the frame. The remainder of the first half saw the two teams exchanging points. The Wyoming lead was 40-25 going into the break. Malene Pedersen had 14 first half points.

Utah State got the first four points to open the second half as the Wyoming offense was cold out of the half. The Cowgirls would eventually respond and go back up by 15 before the media timeout. The score was 44-32 at the media. Out of the timeout, the Aggies continued to cut into the Cowgirl lead, making it single digits at just 45-37. Wyoming carried a 51-39 lead into the fourth quarter.

The Aggies called an early fourth quarter timeout after a Wyoming jumper made it 53-41 with just under nine minutes to play. Following the timeout, a Ollilainen corner 3-pointer and an Allyson Fertig layup made it 58-42 with 6:30 left. The margin was pushed to 19 after another Ollilainen 3-pointer forced a Utah State timeout with 4:33 left. The rest of the contest was in hand by the Cowgirls as they cruised the rest of the way, even leading by as many as 21 with a little under three minutes to go.

Pedersen finished the game just off her career-high, scoring 22 points on 7-of-13 shooting. Fertig was one rebound shy of a double-double as she finished with 14 points and nine boards. Ollilainen, who made her first-career start in the win, had 11 points and five assists. Dickerson, meanwhile, scored a season-high 11 on 5-of-8 from the field. Mellema had a strong all-around game, as she tallied a game-high six assists to go along with six rebounds, two blocks and a pair of steals.

“I thought we started just a little slow, knocking off a little bit of rust from the Holiday Break,” said Heather Ezell postgame.

“But, once we understood the defense they were in and what we were doing, I thought we really executed on that end. I thought we guarded pretty dang well on the defensive end, especially from our guards. Overall, we wanted to take away their threes and I thought we did that well today.”

Wyoming shot 46.4-percent from the field (26-56) and hit 8-of-19 (42-percent) from 3-point range. Utah State, meanwhile, shot just 30.6-percent (19-62) and made 5-of-23 from beyond-the-arc. The Cowgirls enjoyed a plus-eight advantage in points in the paint (32-24) and doubled-up the Aggies in second-chance points, 18-9. Both teams had six points off turnovers and 19 points from its benches.

The Cowgirls now hit the road for the first time in MW play as they make a trip to Fresno State Saturday. Tip-off is set for 3 p.m., Mountain Time in Fresno.