UNLV tops BYU

Friday, Feb. 6, 2004 | 10:32 a.m.

Before the Lady Rebels' game against Brigham Young Thursday night, Mark Wasik of the UNLV sports information office gave media a sneak peek at the brochure UNLV will be sending out to promote forwards RanDee Henry and Sherry McCracklin for postseason honors.

Then Henry and McCracklin went out and showed once again why they are deserving of all the attention.

Henry scored 25 points and pulled down 20 rebounds while McCracklin finished with 20 and 13 to help the Lady Rebels rally from a one-point halftime deficit and beat the Cougars 77-64 at Cox Pavilion.

UNLV improved to 5-1 in Mountain West Conference play and 16-3 overall heading into a showdown with first-place Utah (6-0, 16-4) at noon Sunday at the Thomas & Mack Center.

"Obviously, Sherry and RanDee are turning out to be the strongest front line in the Mountain West Conference and I'd like to see them continue to build off that," said Lady Rebels coach Regina Miller after Henry and McCracklin got through pounding BYU on the boards. Their 33 combined rebounds equaled the Cougars' entire team total.

With Henry and McCracklin playing volleyball against the backboard, UNLV collected 24 offensive rebounds and scored 27 second-chance points to BYU's seven. Given the Lady Rebels' subpar 37-percent shooting night, that was crucial to the victory. So was McCracklin's defensive effort on Ambroisa Anderson, the Cougars' smooth 6-foot-2 sophomore.

"I thought Sherry McCracklin worked awfully hard on Ambrosia Anderson, who can go off for 30 (points). But she held her one below her average (Anderson scored 13 points) and Sherry really set the tone defensively in the paint for us."

On the other end, the Lady Rebels got away from their bread-and-butter for a long stretch during the first half. A barrage of missed jump shots (UNLV finished just 3-of-21 from beyond the 3-point arc) helped BYU battle back from an 8-0 deficit and forced Miller to raise her voice a bit during the halftime chat.

"Oh, wow, it was pretty intense at halftime," McCracklin said. "When we get down, the team looks for me or RanDee to make the big plays. So we just looked at it like 'we need to step up.' I just felt when the game was that close it was up to either her or me to step up."

Guard Sheena Moore also got to stepping, finishing with 19 points in 39 minutes. BYU, which dropped to a disappointing 1-5 in the conference and 11-9 overall, received 13 points apiece from Anderson and reserve Kali Taylor.

Having dispatched the Cougars, the Lady Rebels immediately turned their attention to Utah. With New Mexico falling at Colorado State Thursday, the Utes and Laby Rebels will be battling for first place in Sunday's regionally televised (Fox Rocky Mountain) game.

"That was part of my postgame talk," Miller said. "I told them they've put themselves in position for Sunday. This is something that we wanted, especially after our loss to New Mexico (Saturday). We bounced back and beat BYU and got ourselves in position to play for a tie for first against Utah.

"I asked the team in the locker room if they were hungry, period. Not just for Utah. We've shown in spurts that we can be a very good team but we're not as good as we're going to be in March."

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