Woodward Has Career High, Cowgirls Ground Air Force 82-47

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A career-high 29 points from junior Kayla Woodward led the Wyoming basketball team to a 82-47 victory over the Air Force Falcons on Wednesday night in Laramie. The Cowgirls improved to 12-4 overall on the season and 3-2 in the Mountain West while the Falcons fell to 1-16 and 0-7 in league play.

"Tonight was probably as hard fought of a game even with the large margin of victory," said head coach Joe Legerski. "I have so much respect for the Air Force Academy... they come out after you for the entire 40 minutes of the game. We had to compete that way. They started with a different line-up tonight with four guards so I knew we could get the ball inside."

After holding a 20-point lead at halftime, Wyoming scored 9 of the first 12 points to extend the lead to 26, 46-21. Air Force tried to chip away at the lead closing the gap to 22, 53-31, with 14:05 left. Kaylie Rader would score a layup that started a 12-2 run to build the lead to back to 32, 65-33. In final 10 minutes, the Cowgirls held the Falcons to 47 points on the night (a season low by UW).

Woodward finished the night with her 15th double-figure scoring game of the season, while shooting 12-17 from the field and 3-5 from beyond the arc. She also recorded seven rebounds, four steals and four assists. Fallon Lewis recorded her sixth double-double of the season with 14 points and 11 rebounds, while Jasmine Davis chipped in a career high 11 points. The Cowgirls were 32-56 (.571) for the field and 15-27 (.556) from the free throw line. Wyoming out-rebounded the Falcons 43-21 and finished with 52 points in the paint.

"Fallon got us off to a great start to begin the game and Kayla was consistent tonight. She had 14 in the first half and 15 in the second. Plus, the 52 points in the paint was a big part of what we wanted to get done and we only took 10 threes. They found a way to take that away defensively and we found a way to get our points. It was also nice to play everyone."

The Falcons were led by Lindsey Lewis who had 12 points off the bench while shooting 5-8 from the field. Camille Thompson added 10 while Jimi Blagowsky chipped in six plus three rebounds. Air Force was 20-53 (.377) from the field and committed 18 turnovers.

The first four minutes of the game saw the Cowgirls shoot 6-8 from the field and build a 12-0 lead. Out of a Falcon timeout, Myah Jackson scored the first field goal for Air Force at the 15:50 mark. The two teams played fairly even over the next stretch of four minutes as Wyoming maintained a 12-point lead, 20-8. Cavanaugh hit a jumper to close the margin to ten, 20-10, and then both teams went several minutes without a basket. Jasmine Davis hit one of two free throws to stop the drought for the Cowgirls, while the Falcons scored the next five unanswered to close the gap to six, 21-15. Free throws followed by a basket from Woodward ended a six-minute field goal drought by Wyoming. That was part of a 17-3 run to close out the half for the Cowgirls to give them a 38-18 lead heading into the locker room.

Lewis paced the Cowgirls in the first half with her sixth double-double of the season recording 12 points and 10 boards, while Woodward had 14 points and four steals. Wyoming had 28 points in the paint and 13 second chance points. The Cowgirls shot 17-32 (.531) from the field but struggled from the charity stripe shooting 4-12 (.333).

The Cowgirls are on the road to close out the week traveling to Reno to take on the Nevada Wolf Pack. The game will tip-off on Saturday, Jan. 25, at 5:00 p.m.