VERMILLION, S.D. — The Wyoming Cowgirls took care of business against South Dakota with a great performance on both ends of the court Sunday, cruising to a 79-45 win.

The Cowgirls started the game by hitting each of their first two 3-point attempts to take an early lead. After an Emily Mellema three-point play, UW held an early 9-3 advantage.

Wyoming soon got up by double digits to lead 14-3, though the hot start was far from done Following a timeout, the lead got up to as many as 14 before South Dakota somewhat found its footing. The Cowgirls led 18-7 at the end of the opening quarter.

Mellema opened the second with back-to-back 3-pointers and the Wyoming lead surged to 24-9 with eight minutes left in the half, forcing a Coyote timeout. UW went up by 18 before USD started to find its range and cut the score down to 31-18.

However, the Cowgirls responded after that, continuing the hot shooting from the outside with back-to-back 3-pointers, going back up 37-18 with under two to play in the half. The lead ballooned from there, to 41-18 at the half.

The third quarter began with more hot outside shooting and strong defense from the Cowgirls as they built up a 55-20 advantage to open the half.

USD trimmed the lead down to 55-26 before Wyoming had yet another answer in the game. The Cowgirls closed the third on a 12-0 run and led 67-26 after three.

In the fourth, UW emptied the bench and played mostly just subs in the quarter. USD would outscore the Cowgirls in the frame to make the final score a bit more respectable.

Wyoming hit a season-best 14 3-pointers in the victory and shot nearly 54% from beyond the arc. South Dakota shot just 25.4% for the game.

Allyson Fertig led all scorers with 17 points in the win and was just one rebound shy of a second straight double-double. Tess Barnes, Mellema and Ola Ustowska all added 12 each and combined to shoot 11-for-15 from 3-point range.

Related

Penn State wrestling has its second home dual meet of the year today. The No. 1 Nittany Lions welcome a top-30 but shorthanded (more on that below) Wyoming team to the Bryce Jordan Center. And no, that is not a typo. The match was previously scheduled to be held at Rec Hall. But, with the school’s women’s volleyball team now hosting postseason action there, the contest had to be moved across campus. It will mark the first of three BJC matches for head coach Cael Sanderson’s team this year, although originally, only two were planned, of course. The Lions will also face Iowa and Michigan there during the 2025 portion of their regular season schedule.

“That’s awesome. I love BJC,” Penn State senior Beau Bartlett, the team’s starter at 141 pounds, told reporters this week. “Rec Hall is cool. BJC is awesome. I’m excited for that. It was a big match wrestling down in Lehigh and the PPL Center, that arena was sweet. Feels like NCAAs. So BJC, I love that. That’s going to be sweet.”

Get ready for Penn State-Wyoming with our match preview below.

What time, channel, is Penn State-Wyoming on?

A total of five Penn State matches will be streamed exclusively by the Big Ten Network via its subscription service B1G+. This is one of those matches. Click here to learn more about the available subscription plans.

Today’s match starts at 1 p.m. ET.

Those who will not be on hand or don’t have B1G+ subscription can listen to the radio call from longtime program play-by-play man Jeff Byers for free on LionVision by clicking here. The Penn State pre-match show goes live at 1:40 p.m. ET. Blue-White Illustrated will also have updates on The Wrestling Room forum.

Projected starting lineups

The two expected big matches of the day are both off. Wyoming All-American Jore Volk has not wrestled since late November due to injury and will not be on the mat today in State College. Additionally, No. 14 197-pound Cowboy Joey Novak is also not making the trip due to injury. He was set to face undefeated Penn State redshirt sophomore Josh Barr, who is No. 7 in his weight class’ rankings per InterMat.

Here’s a look at the rest of the projected starting lineups:

125 pounds: No. 12 Luke Lilledahl, PSU vs. Jack Braman, Wyoming

133 pounds: No. 11 Braeden Davis, PSU vs. Stockton O’Brien, Wyoming

141 pounds: No. 3 Beau Bartlett, PSU vs. No. 28 Cole Brooks, Wyoming

149 pounds: No. 2 Shayne Van Ness vs. No. 20 Gabe Willochell, Wyoming

157 pounds: No. 4 Tyler Kasak OR Alex Facundo, PSU vs. No. 19 Jared Hill, Wyoming

165 pounds: No. 1 Mitchell Mesenbrink, PSU vs. Cooper Voorhees, Wyoming

174 pounds: No. 2 Levi Haines, PSU vs. Seamus Casey OR Riley Davis OR Quayin Short, Wyoming

184 pounds: No. 1 Carter Starocci, PSU vs. Eddie Neitenbach OR Quayin Short, Wyoming

197 pounds: No. 7 Josh Barr OR Lucas Cochran, PSU vs. TBD, Wyoming

285 pounds: No. 2 Greg Kerkvliet, PSU vs. Kevin Zimmer, Wyoming

Whenever BYU and former conference rival Wyoming tangle in any sport, the results are never all that pretty for either side.

So when BYU star Richie Saunders collided with Wyoming’s Jordan Nesbitt early in Saturday night’s nonconference basketball game in front of 11,217 at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City and got the worst of it, suffering a bloody and lacerated lip that would keep him out the remainder of the contest, it appeared it was going to be another one of those classic Cougars-Cowboys contests.

BYU’s defense, led by specialist Mawot Mag, a seldom-used transfer from Rutgers, had other ideas.

Not known for its defensive prowess in its previous nine games, BYU upped the intensity on that end of the floor almost the entire 40 minutes and ran away with a 68-49 win to improve to 8-2 and push its winning streak over Wyoming to 15 games.

The 49 points tied 5-5 Wyoming’s lowest output of the season, the other coming in a 96-49 loss at Texas Tech.

“It was a good win. I thought our defensive execution was outstanding. They are a team that gets to the line quite a bit,” said BYU coach Kevin Young.

““I thought we forced them into some shots that they are not comfortable taking, then kept them off the free-throw line. That was really the key to the game. I am happy with the defensive execution more than anything.”

With BYU leading 4-0 and Saunders heading to the locker room with head athletic trainer Rob Ramos, Young turned to Dawson Baker and then Mag, and the duo displayed the depth that the Cougars will need to rely on all the more when they get into Big 12 play.

Young called Mag’s performance “inspiring” and said it was the difference in the game. The graduate transfer who was raised in Australia had season-highs across the board: 11 points (on 4 of 5 shooting), three rebounds in 23 minutes.

“I just told the team that it was (huge),” Young said. “He has been dealt a tough hand here, coming back off an injury and he just hasn’t found his footing, and I have not given him much opportunity to find his footing, so he has had to grind through stuff as a guy who has played major minutes at a major college basketball level and has had a great attitude and it was just really inspiring what he did.”

Wyoming would appear to be rather average by Mountain West standards, but consider that the Cowboys lost their last three games by a combined seven points, and on Dec. 4 in Logan, they pushed undefeated Utah State to the brink before the Aggies won, 70-67.

Offensively, the Cowboys are on the explosive side despite playing at a slower pace than most opponents BYU has faced this season. Obi Agbim scored a game-high 21 points, but no other Cowboys reached double figures.

“His defense was tremendous,” Young said of Mag, “and they were daring him to shoot shots. He took good shots and made them (3 of 4 from 3-point range for the career 27% 3-point shooter). “That kid he was guarding out there is a good player. I thought our guys rallied around it and it was a cool moment for our team.”

What was the key to Mag’s success?

“Just staying ready. Coach always tries to tell us if things are not going your way, just stay ready,” Mag said. “It is a long season and we have a lot of talent.

“There can only be a certain amount of people on the floor. Just stay ready and get better every day and just wait your turn because you never know.”

With freshman Egor Demin watching from the bench for the second straight game with a knee contusion and Saunders exiting early, it fell upon Trevin Knell and Baker to pick up the scoring slack, and that’s what they did.

Knell went 6 for 7 for 15 points in 28 minutes, while Baker had 11 points, five rebounds and two assists. Young said Saunders “will continue to be evaluated” and didn’t have any other details on the injury that drew blood and silenced the Delta Center crowd for a good minute before he was helped to his feet.

“Richie’s injury was unfortunate, but everybody stepped up, including myself and Eli (Crawford),” Mag said. “I am just glad we came out here and got the W.”

Added Baker: “No matter who it is, when someone goes down it is just our instincts as brothers to get behind each other and push forward and that’s what we did tonight. I am really excited and proud of the guys.”

That BYU would get its eighth win wasn’t really in question early as the Cougars jumped out to an 11-0 lead, but Young’s squad seemed to lose interest a bit after building a 30-16 advantage with 7:20 remaining in the first half and only scored four points on their last 10 possessions of the half, allowing Wyoming to scratch back and make it 34-25 at halftime.

BYU scored 27 points in the first 10 minutes of the first half and just seven points in the last 10 minutes of the half. Credit the Cowboys for dictating the tempo the last 10 minutes of the first half.

“That last four-minute stretch (of the first half) wasn’t great for us offensively,” Young acknowledged. “Weird combinations, probably poor subbing on my part. I will have to look at the film to see exactly what (happened). We couldn’t find a rhythm, execution was poor.”

The second half was a different story. With Knell and Mag drilling 3-pointers, the Cougars quickly regained control and had a 56-37 lead with just under 10 minutes remaining on a Baker layup.

“Outside of the first play of the half, I thought we executed extremely well in the second half,” Young said. “I don’t think the stats will show it. How many layups did we miss at the basket? It felt like a bunch after running some really good offense. I thought the execution was much better, though.”

BYU took much better care of the ball in the second half after committing eight turnovers in the first half. The Cougars finished with 13, but a few of those came in garbage time.

They adjusted well to an NBA arena as well, making 9 of 20 3-point attempts (45%) and shooting 52% from the field, despite the plethora of missed bunnies that Young referenced.

BYU’s bench outscored Wyoming’s bench 37-14 and the Cougars enjoyed a 24-18 advantage in the paint.

“We gotta continue to compete against some of the power conference teams to continue to learn about ourselves, but I think our defensive identity particularly in the last two games is really starting to come together,” Young said.

“Offensively we are playing the way I would like us to play, for the most part. … We are one game away from Big 12 play so we gotta do it in short order, but so far we are getting closer.”

The Cougars’ next game is Friday against Florida A&M at the Marriott Center.