Lady Rebels fall to Rams

Steve Guiremand

Friday, Feb. 2, 2001 | 11:37 a.m.

Saturday night is "Pack the Mack" night for UNLV's Lady Rebel basketball team against Wyoming.

But Thursday night was more like "Getting Sacked at the Mack" night for Regina Miller's squad.

Coming off arguably their finest game of the year, an 82-41 thrashing of San Diego State, the Lady Rebels came out flat in the first half and never could recover en route to a 69-62 loss to Colorado State before an announced crowd of 817.

Despite the fact the game was a battle for a share of second place in the Mountain West standings, the Lady Rebels (13-5, 3-3) seemed to lack the focus and intensity of the visiting Rams (15-4, 4-2), who quickly spurted out to a 27-14 lead in the first 11 minutes behind the 3-point shooting of forward Heather Haanen, who finished with a game-high 23 points, including 4-of-6 from 3-point range.

Colorado State led by as many as 16 points before settling for a 41-29 halftime lead.

MWC scoring leader Linda Frohlich, coming off MWC Player of the Week honors, was held to just two points in the first 28 minutes and finished with only nine points, her lowest scoring output of the season.

Despite all that, the Lady Rebels still rallied at the end to cut the Ram lead to three points, 60-57, on an Erin Johansson 3-pointer with 1:31 remaining.

But junior guard Angie Norton then made the play of the game, driving to the basket for a 3-point play with 56.5 seconds left to make it 63-57. She sank both ends of a one-and-one 17 seconds later that sealed the win for CSU.

"The first half we just dug ourselves too big of a hole," Lady Rebel guard Kinesha Davis, who finished with a team-high 17 points, said. "But the good thing is that we kept on fighting until the end."

Miller made it clear that there is still a lot of basketball left to be played in the Mountain West. UNLV still has eight MWC games remaining, four at home and four on the road.

"I want to keep this in perspective," Miller said. "This is not the end of the world. We didn't play well tonight and for me as a coach that is disappointing. ... These players are still learning."

And the next lesson is Saturday night against Wyoming.