Box Score

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.— Fort Lewis College head women's basketball coach Mark Kellogg feared his Skyhawks might come out flat after last night's emotional, 65-59 win at Colorado State-Pueblo – a game that put FLC in the driver's seat for its fourth Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference regular season championship in five years.

His fears were realized tonight, as UC-Colorado Springs (12-11 overall, 8-10 in the RMAC) shocked No. 6 Fort Lewis (19-3, 16-2) 84-78 tonight at the Gallogly Events Center.

“Tough, tough, tough loss tonight. It was a little bit of a trap game after a big emotional win,” said Kellogg. “We knew that and we talked about it before.”

A team that usually relies on defense to force its opponents to make bad decisions, Fort Lewis forced just 17 turnovers and recorded only seven steals.

The Mountain Lions shot 62.5 percent from the field (30 of 48) and were lethal in the second half, missing just four of 22 field goal attempts.

“We just didn't defend well enough, obviously,” Kellogg lamented. “We didn't buckle down and get the stops we needed to. Some (shots) were contested and credit Springs for hitting a bunch of big shots in key moments.”

Still, the Skyhawks found a way match UCCS for most of the game, which saw 22 lead changes and nine tied scores. Fort Lewis was hot, too, shooting 53.6 percent from the field (30 of 56).

“We battled. We played hard, we just didn't play the smartest game,” said Kellogg. “And then we just didn't get the big stops. I thought for most of the game we were just waiting around for something to happen. We got in a tight game and just didn't respond. We weren't mentally tough enough to get stops when we needed to.”

The Mountain Lions took the lead for good with 6:03 remaining when Danielle Brown's layup made the score 67-65. UCCS stretched the margin to as many as eight points before the Skyhawks pulled to within two points in the final minute, but a turnover by Mary Rose Paiz with 36 seconds left prevented FLC from tying the game or taking the lead.

FLC's comeback was largely due to the play of a pair of reserve guards – Alex Easterbrook and Erika Richards.

“Easterbrook hit a couple of big threes for us. And Richards was really going off pretty good there at the end, but she was the only one,” said Kellogg. “We needed more kids to step up and be in that moment.”

Richards scored nine straight points down the stretch on a pair of treys and three free throws to finish with a team-high 16 points. Easterbrook had six points on 2-of-3 shooting from long range and added a trio of assists.

Jamie Simmons came off the bench to score 12 points for FLC, while Paiz was the lone starter in double digits with 10.

Three players did the bulk of the damage for UCCS, scoring 63 of the Mountain Lions' 84 points. Abby Kirchoff led the way with 28 points, while Jessica Brown scored 20 and Ashley Miller added 15 points and six assists.

Fort Lewis dropped a half-game behind No. 7 Metro State (21-2, 17-2) in the RMAC standings. Last night's foe, Colorado State-Pueblo (18-4, 15-3), pulled within a game of the Skyhawks with two weeks remaining in the regular season.

“Now we just opened the door for a lot of other things to happen,” Kellogg said of the RMAC standings.

Fort Lewis hits the road again next weekend, with games at Colorado Mines (9-15, 8-10) at 6 p.m. Friday and Colorado Christian (12-12, 10-8) at 5 p.m. Saturday.