by Kenn Rodriguez
Daily Lobo
The UNM women's basketball team took flight Saturday night defeating the Houston Flight team 94-50 in its first exhibition game.
Amazingly, the game was not as close as the score indicates. The Lobos took a 21-6 lead in the first six minutes and never looked back, dominating the contest in front of a crowd of 8,555.
The Lobos, who played all 13 players who suited up, finished with five players in double figures. Junior forward Melissa Forest led all scorers with 22 points. She just missed a double-double, grabbing nine rebounds. Senior guard Chelsea Grear finished with 18 points and nine rebounds.
Sophomore point guard Mandi Moore dished out 12 assists with only four turnovers in 35 minutes on the court, while freshman guard Abbie Letz, who spelled Moore at point guard at times, scored 12 points and had four assists with only two turnovers in her debut. Head coach Don Flanagan said he felt Letz and UNM's other two freshmen - Tiana Johnson and Jana Francis, played well
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"I thought Abby, Tiana and Jana all did very well," he said. "I was pretty satisfied with that. Abby shot pretty well. I thought Tiana looked very good, athletic - she hit some shots. And Jana went in and battled and that's what I expect from Jana. This freshmen group is really going to compliment our team."
The Lobos led the game 49-20 at halftime and steadily increased their lead as the second half wore on. At one point, UNM hit five treys in six trips. Houston struggled to keep pace as the lead ballooned to 86-44 with 3:34 left. As the crowd encouraged them to hit 100 points, the Lobos' lead topped out at 47 with under two minutes left.
"I liked our play," Flanagan said. "We looked strong out there, rebounding was pretty good. That's a team that can make you look bad because they've got some quickness. We adjusted to the quickness pretty well. I thought we were the more physical team. We pushed when we should have pushed."
UNM shot 31 three-pointers, hitting 16 to tie a Pit record set in 1996 against Brigham Young University.
"Their defense was lazy and they weren't coming out to us so we were just open all night," sophomore forward Lindsey Arndt said.
The Lobos hit 42 percent of their shots while holding Houston to 25.8 percent for the game. Flanagan said he was happy with the team's defensive performance; particularly UNM's work keeping the Flight's offensive rebound total to eight for the game.
"Defensively, I was pretty happy," Flanagan said. "I thought generally speaking we helped well and we blocked out pretty good. Their offensive boards, anytime you hold a team to single figures, you're doing pretty well."
The Lobos begin the regular season Saturday afternoon at the University of Southern Califor-nia.
The Trojans defeated 18th-ranked Colorado State University 59-58 at Fort Collins, Colo. in the Preseason Women's National Invitational Tournament Saturday night. USC plays fifth-ranked Kansas State University Wednesday in the WNIT.
