Walker’s career-high 32 lifts Techsters past UTEP

EL PASO, Texas – Louisiana Tech bounced back from their loss to Charlotte in a huge way Thursday night with a 77-60 win over UTEP behind a career-high 32 points from Keiunna Walker inside the Don Haskins Center in El Paso, Texas.

Walker, who was playing in her 100th career game for the Techsters, set her new career mark on 12-24 shooting including 2-4 from three-point range and 6-9 from the free-throw line.

Tech (15-9, 7-6 C-USA) now sits just a half-game behind Southern Miss for the conference USA West Division lead after winning seven of their last nine games.

The Techsters were also supported by Anna Larr Roberson’s eighth double-double of the year with 18 points and 11 rebounds. The conference USA leader in three-throw percentage (.868) was a perfect 6-6 from the line.

In a game that could be characterized as both sloppy (57 combined turnovers), yet efficient (both teams shot better than 48% from the field), Tech began the night on a quick 9-3 run. ?UTEP (13- 11, 5-9 C-USA) responded with a 15-0 run to take a 18-9 lead with 3:08 remaining in the first quarter. After a Techsters’ timeout, Tech punched back with a 13-0 run of their own the final three minutes to regain the lead at the quarter break (22-18).?Things evened up between the two teams the rest of the half as the Techsters kept a four-point margin at the half-way point (32-28).

Tech finally began to bust the game open over the final three minutes of the third quarter with an 11-2 run which was sparked by a Lotte Sant three-pointer and extended their lead to 10 (54-44) going into the final break.

In the fourth, Tech slowly added to their lead eventually building to a game-high 22 points with 1:50 remaining in the game.

A combination of taking care of the ball, finding good shots, and knocking down freethrows kept any chance of UTEP pulling off a comeback at bay.

The Techsters shot 51% from the field and hit 20 of their 23 free-throws.