Six straight Mountain West wins as UNLV takes care of Wyoming on road

This recent win streak has given the UNLV women’s basketball team a fast start to conference play as it continues its pursuit of five straight regular season titles in the Mountain West.

The Lady Rebels got some revenge on the Wyoming Cowgirls, 82-53, Saturday, Jan. 10 from Arena Auditorium in Laramie. It goes down as the sixth win for the program in the last seven contests against its Mountain West rival.

“I think it’s huge,” head coach Lindy La Rocque said. “I think this is one of the toughest places to play in the league. We were locked in. We knew we wanted to come out from the gate and play well so I was proud of our team for that.”

UNLV is now 4-4 on the road this season after beginning the year with one win in its first five showings away from home. Overall, the program improved to 11-5 on the year as it continues to tread water along with San Diego State, who is 12-3 this season with a 6-0 conference record.

Saturday marked the first of a two-game road trip for the Lady Rebels. A journey that will conclude in San Jose Wednesday, Jan. 14 against the Spartans. Tip-off is slated for 7 p.m.

“We’re happy to be 6-0 because there’s not many people that are,” La Rocque said. “I still don’t feel like we’ve played our best. It’s important to kind of get your rhythm. I think some of our toughest games are still ahead of us.”

UNLV’s stingy defense returned to top form relatively early in this one. It held Wyoming without a point for the final 4:39 of the first quarter. To follow that up, the home team went without a point for the first 3:02 of the second quarter.

The Lady Rebels went up double-digits in the opening quarter with a 13-2 run, a stretch that would get pushed to 17-2 as the team went up by 14 points.

Ultimately, that run would leak into the second quarter en route to a 24-2 run. Before the final buzzer, UNLV led by as many as 33 points.

La Rocque emptied her bench late in regulation of the blowout win. Junior guard Sydni Summers scored in double-figures for the first time since March of last year when she was a member of San Jose State.

Summers drilled four of the team’s 12 made three-pointers on the night.

“Sports create a lot of cool stories,” La Rocque said. “Honestly, we’re bias toward our own and I think Sydni’s is pretty cool. She came in and made some really big plays for us in that first half that really created the separation in the game.”

Sophomore forward Meadow Roland led the team in scoring with 18 points on 8-of-19 shooting to go along with 12 rebounds. She has now recorded double-doubles in consecutive games.

“I’d probably say we have [three go-to scorers] or more,” La Rocque said. “All the games call for something different.”

Senior forward Shelbee Brown was dominant again against in a conference meeting with 17 points and a game-high 14 rebounds. In six Mountain West games this season, she’s posted double-doubles in four of those contests.

“She just has a tenacity to just go and get the ball,” La Rocque said. “I’d like to take credit for that but that’s her. She gets rebounds out of her area and that’s just elite-level.”

Proficient scorer Jasmyn Lott was held to just five points for the second time in the last five games. In this one, she tallied her five points on a very limited 2-for-6 shooting.

In the team’s last outing, she contributed a career-high 23 points in the win.

“Her defense was huge,” La Rocque said. “I know she wants to make every shot but that’s not going to happen. We’ve relied on her in other games.”