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UTSA comeback runs out of time against Louisiana Tech

Roadrunners were down by as much as 13 points in second half before making late run 

The Convocation Center has been a house of horrors for most teams through the years. Louisiana Tech is not one of them as they have only lost once in six trips to the Alamo City but on Saturday afternoon the Roadrunners overcame another cold shooting day and overcame a double-digit deficit before running out of time in a 72-66 loss to the Bulldogs.

"I was proud of our effort, proud of our fight," UTSA Head Coach Steve Henson said. "We didn't finish enough plays, we missed some point blank shots. I was proud of the way we hung in there in the first half."

The first half was closely contested for the first 14 minutes or so before Louisiana Tech took advantage of a Roadrunner cold stretch to take a 10 point lead with 5:21 to play before halftime. From that point the Roadrunners could get no closer than five and had to get a three pointer from George Willborn at the buzzer to go into the locker room down by six points, 42-36.

"There was a point where it looked like they were about to pop it open on us. " Henson said. "George hitting that three at the end of the half was good for us. It gave us a little boost going into the locker room only down six."

UTSA had played the first half with Jeff Beverly and Byron Frohnen only playing nine minutes and six minutes respectively because of foul trouble. The Roadrunners were saved by Lucas O'Brien who scored 17 points in the first half en route to a career high 23 points.

"Jeff had a pretty rough first half getting into foul trouble so someone had to step up," O'Brien said. "Coach gave me chances to get the ball up and I was lucky enough to knock them down."

UTSA started the second half on a 5-0 run to get within one point of the Bulldogs at the 17:56 mark of the second half but the Bulldogs responded with a 16-4 run over the next eight minutes to go up 58-45 with 9:25 left to play.

It would have been easy for the Roadrunners to throw in the towel against the second best team in the conference but then this Roadrunner team doesn't go down easy. Jeff Beverly, who had been held to two points in the first half, got going in the second half and the Roadrunners kept whittling away at the Bulldogs lead.

"I'm proud of our guys," O'Brien said. "They're a great veteran team and we have to keep working."

Eventually the Roadrunners were rewarded to some degree by their determination. After Erik McCree knocked down a three for Louisiana Tech at the 4:08 mark to put the visitors up 68-58 the Roadrunners got tough and in the next three minutes O'Brien took a pair of charges that led to a few Beverly three pointers. By the 1:14 mark UTSA was only down by two and the 1,212 in attendance began to believe that maybe the Roadrunners would overcome the early deficits.

"You look up there and we have a legitimate chance there late," Henson said. "I'm not surprised at that. The guys believe that if we can hang and hang and get a few stops we can win."

It was not meant to be as the guests from Ruston made shots down the stretch and the Roadrunners didn't.

UTSA is on the road for their next four games. They won't have to leave the state of Texas for two weeks as next weekend they are at Rice and North Texas.

The next UTSA home game will be on Thursday March 2 against Charlotte at 7 pm.


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