Eastern New Mexico defeats UCCS in season-opener

The University of Colorado at Colorado Springs (0-1) lost its season opener to the Eastern New Mexico Zias Sunday afternoon. Eastern New Mexico beat the Mountain Lions 65-55 in front of 105 fans at the Lionsâ€^TM Den.

Rebounding was the story of the day. Eastern New Mexico had three 6-footers in its starting lineup allowing the Zias to dominate the undersized Mountian Lions on the glass. Eastern New Mexico out rebounded CU-Colorado Springs 59-33.

“We all need to work on boxing-out,” said Meghan McGee who scored 14 points and had a team-high eight rebounds. “We are too short just to jump.”

The Mountain Lions played well on the defensive end, forcing 31 turnovers. CU-Colorado Springs converted many over those turnovers into points early in the first half.

CU-Colorado Springs came out on fire, hitting five of its first six shots to take a 12-7 lead. A few moments later, a McGee 3-pointer gave the Mountain Lions an 18-9 lead with 13:00 remaining in the first half. The Mountain Lions shooting turned cold and Eastern New Mexico went on a 9-0 run to tie the game.

Eastern New Mexico scored seven of the halfâ€^TMs final nine points and led 37-31 at the break. The Zias shot a prefect 15-for-15 from the foul line in the first half and finished the game 22-for-27 from the line. The Mountain Lions shot themselves in the foot, hitting just 45 percent from the line for the game and missing the front ends of a 1-and-1 three times.

Eastern New Mexico jumped out to its biggest lead of the game early in the second half. The Zias came out of the locker room with a 6-0 blitz that put them up 12, 43-31. CU-Colorado Springs slowly chipped away at the lead and was able to trim it to four points, 56-52, on a B.J. McNeally jumper with 6:13 to go. The Mountain Lions offense went cold again though as they scored just three points over the final 6:00.

McNeally finished the game with 14 points to go along with six assists and nine steals. Julie Richards added 11 points and three blocks off the bench and Janine Ota had seven points and three assists.