PITTSBURGH, Pa. – The historic season for the No. 3 Colorado Mesa women's basketball team came to an end on Thursday (Mar. 26) evening as they fell to No. 4 Indiana (Pa.) 75-70 in the NCAA National Semifinal in UPMC Cooper Fieldhouse.
IUP jumped out to a 12-0 lead in the first 3:24 of the game but the Mavericks came stampeding back to make it 21-19 at the end of the first period.
Colorado Mesa was able to tie the game at two separate occasions in the second quarter but trailed 36-29 at the half after the Crimson Hawks went on a 6-0 run over the final 3:07 of the quarter.
Olivia Reed Thyne (22) and
Mason Rowland (7) had all 29 of the Mavs' first half points as they went a combined 12-for-20 from the field while the rest of the team was 0-for-10.
The Mavericks trailed the entire second half, getting within four at one point in the third.
Reed Thyne and Rowland combined for 61 of the Mavs' 70 points and were the only two scorers in the first half.
Reed Thyne tallied 34 points and 14 rebounds to record her seventh straight post-season double-double. She finished with 24 double-doubles this season and 67 in her career which is tied for sixth most in NCAA Division II history.
The Crimson Hawks held the rest of the Mavericks to just nine points.
The Mavericks finished with a 40-32 rebounding advantage.
For Reed Thyne, she finishes her storied career with 2,490 points, nearly 500 more points than the former RMAC record of 2,002.
She also broke the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference's 35-year old single-season scoring record, finishing the season with 894, the ninth best mark in Division II history. Fort Hays State's Annette Wiles had held the previous RMAC record of 880 since 1991, when RMAC institutions were in the NAIA.
Reed Thyne also finished the season with 457 rebounds and her career with 1,431, which are both RMAC and Colorado Collegiate (all divisions) records that she had previously broken.
The Windsor, Colo. native scored 250 points in the Mavs' eight postseason games, an average of 31.3 per game. She scored 20 or more in all eight and had 30 or more in six of them.
She had 143 points in the Mavs' five NCAA Tournament games.
Rowland tallied 27 points in Thursday's game and the season with 718 points, the third most in CMU history and the fourth most in RMAC history. She also had eight rebounds.
The Mavericks saw their 34-game winning streak end as they finished the season 37-2. The 37 wins are most in program and RMAC history and are tied for the third most in NCAA Division II history.
