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Provo • As Utah made its rally and attempted to make another impossible comeback against BYU, Haley Steed thought of last year.
That's when Utah stole a win from the Cougars with a Michelle Plouffe game-winning jumper at the buzzer in the Mountain West Conference Tournament. So, as a senior, and on her home court, Steed refused to let that happen again.
With the help of Steed almost recording a triple-double, BYU defeated the Utes 63-58 in front of 1,270 at the Marriott Center on Saturday afternoon.
Steed, a quick and explosive point guard, led the way with 12 points, nine rebounds and eight assists.
"I can tell when I have a good game when I have a lot of assists," Steed said. "There are so many great players on this team that having them score is better than having me score."
Don't be confused — Steed was the catalyst. She played all 40 minutes and ran the Cougars' offense beautifully. Her penetration led to wide-open looks for Stephanie Vermunt, who dropped in a team-high 14 points and hit four big 3-pointers. Dani Peterson had 10 points, and freshman Lexi Eaton was huge defensively as she was able to keep Utah point guard Janita Badon out of the lane.
BYU led 30-29 at halftime, but an 11-0 run midway through the second half proved to be the turning point. It allowed the Cougars to lead by as much as 13 points (59-46) with 9:25 remaining.
A blowout, just like the men's game, seemed inevitable.
"Somewhere in that second half, our offense just got really stagnant," Utes head coach Anthony Levrets said. "We stopped moving the ball and without the ball. Motion is critical to our offense, and we didn't have that. Part of that was BYU because that defense is really good. But we had some of the same problems against Idaho State earlier this week."
Down the stretch, Utah's offense decided to make an appearance. Plouffe, with a game-high 21 points, dropped in consecutive 3-pointers. Badon bulled her way to the hoop and to the free-throw line enough to score 10 points. She also had seven rebounds and five assists.
But Taryn Wicijowski scoring five points on 2-9 shooting was devastating for the Utes, who often play through their sophomore center. Iwalani Rodrigues didn't get as many looks from the perimeter as she's used to, either.
As a result, BYU won its seventh consecutive game and the Cougars are 9-2 on the season. While Utah played seven on Saturday, BYU went 10 deep. That allowed BYU to be the fresher team when it counted.
"I thought the 11-0 run was the key to the game," Cougars head coach Jeff Judkins said. "We knew that Utah was going to make a run. They are too good not to, and that's how rivalry games go. So we had to come out and get a lead. It was big to build a cushion."
Twitter: @tonyaggieville —
BYU 63, Utah 58
R BYU goes on an 11-0 second-half run to build a 13-point advantage.
• The Cougars have 17 assists and just seven turnovers.