Lady Rebels lose to BYU at home

Steve Guiremand

Friday, March 1, 2002 | 10:07 a.m.

UNLV forward Linda Frohlich was asked if she had ever played football before.

"Today," she chuckled following the Lady Rebels' 64-48 loss to BYU at the Thomas & Mack Center on Thursday night.

Frohlich was held to just eight points and eight rebounds as UNLV (21-5 overall, 9-4 in the Mountain West) dropped its first home game of the season and fell into a tie for third place with the Cougars (18-8, 9-4) in the conference standings.

"I thought BYU played extremely physical," UNLV coach Regina Miller said. "And we didn't respond well to their physical play."

"They did a very, very good job of bumping me, obviously," Frohlich said. "We just could never get into a rhythm offensively."

The Cougars did an excellent job of dropping an extra defender or two into Frohlich's path whenever she got the ball down low. Frohlich attempted just nine shots all game, making just two.

Meanwhile, BYU took advantage of the suspension of 6-foot-6 center Petra Glaser by carving up the Lady Rebel defense with drives to the basket and backdoor cuts. BYU held a 36-18 edge in points in the paint.

Still, UNLV actually held a 22-20 lead with 4:05 to go in the first half. But the Cougars, led by rugged junior forward Jennifer Leitner (18 points, 12 rebounds), closed out the half with a 12-3 run to take a 32-25 halftime lead.

Early in the second half, the Cougars went on another 11-2 run to up their lead to 48-33 and were really never threatened the rest of the way.

"I thought that was a key point late in the first half," Miller said. "We talked about trying to make a run going into the locker room but instead we gave up a run."

UNLV, which only a week ago was still holding out hope of possibly catching Colorado State (22-5, 11-2) for the conference title, now finds itself tied for third place with BYU with only Saturday afternoon's 3:30 Senior Day finale against Utah (14-11, 7-6) left on the regular season schedule. It's very possible that the Lady Rebels and Utes could meet again in the first round of the Mountain West tourney on Wednesday.

"We need to win that Utah game and play well going into the conference tournament," Miller said. "We don't want to fade out at the end."

"We'll be ready," Frohlich said. "I think we're a really proud team that will want to come back and get it going again."