Lady Rebels beat SMU in overtime

Friday, Jan. 22, 1999 | 12:12 p.m.

Kristen Pool had struggled at the point guard position as the Lady Rebels lost a pair of Western Athletic Conference games last week at Rice and Tulsa.

Thursday night, however, Pool stepped up her game when UNLV needed it most, helping rally the Lady Rebels from an 18-point first-half deficit in a 72-69 overtime win over Southern Methodist at Lied Gymnasium.

Pool scored 16 points, had 12 assists and five steals to help the Lady Rebels snap a two-game losing streak and improve to 10-5 overall and 2-2 in the conference.

Freshman guard/forward Linda Froehlich was the recipient of most of Pool's assists and led UNLV with 27 points.

"I mentioned (earlier this week) how important it was for us to defend well -- and I thought we did that," UNLV head coach Regina Miller said. "We started out not as intense as we needed to be. Our shots were not falling and we talked in a time out that we needed to up our defensive intensity and I thought we did that.

"I thought Kristen Pool sparked us and Linda hit a lot of good shots for us."

SMU went ahead by two on a pair of free throws with 35 seconds left, and Froehlich sent the game into overtime on a basket with 20 seconds left.

The Lady Rebels went up by three in overtime, 66-63, but SMU reeled off five straight points to take a 69-66 edge with 1:06 left.

Pool was fouled on a three-point attempt with 54 seconds remaining and made two of the three free throws to pull UNLV to within one of the Mustangs.

Amy Wunderlich rebounded the missed free-throw attempt and UNLV called a time out. Liz Wolfe was fouled trying to rebound a missed shot by Wunderlich with 14 seconds left on the clock and the senior center calmly sank both free throws to put UNLV ahead, 70-69.

SMU called a time out with 8.7 seconds remaining to set up a final shot, but the Mustangs' Karen Blair lost the ball while driving through the lane. UNLV recovered the errant ball and Pool was fouled with six-tenths of a second left and made both free throws to produce the 72-69 final.

"They kept hitting shots (early) and we couldn't hit anything, but we switched to man (defense) and they started missing," Pool said.

UNLV resumes conference play Saturday night at 7:35 when it hosts Texas Christian at Lied Gymnasium.