The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga women’s basketball team fell into an 18-point deficit early against Troy, and the Mocs were never able to climb all the way out of that hole, closing to within four in the fourth quarter but faltering late in a 76-66 loss to the Trojans on Thursday night at McKenzie Arena.
Caia Elisaldez finished with 15 points, four assists and three rebounds, and Sigrun Olafsdottir added 13 points, nine rebounds, five steals and three assists for UTC (2-2).
Olafsdottir hit a 3-pointer — her first of four in the game — at the end of the first quarter, which got the Mocs within 24-10, and while UTC outscored the Trojans 56-52 from that point, the home team just couldn’t get the stops or enough baskets to make the game closer than it ever got.
“Credit to our team, I’m proud of them for how they fought back,” UTC first-year head coach Deandra Schirmer said. “I think this group is very resilient, but we also have to be focused and locked in. You can’t just have fight and resiliency, you also have to have a preparedness. You also have to have an ability to come out in a game and do it from the tip, and that’s what we’ve been talking about a lot in practice, and this game is a perfect example of that.
“If you don’t start the game well against a talented team like this, you can get in a hole pretty quickly.”