By Con Marshall             BOX SCORE
Athena Saragoza, a 5-foot-8 sophomore, hit her first four shots, all of them 3-pointers, while providing the Regis women’s basketball team with a 12-4 lead Saturday afternoon in the Chicoine Center.
In retrospect, that was about the only spectacular thing the Rangers did, but, as much as anything, it led to their 71-58 victory over the host Chadron State Eagles in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference contest.
The Denver team is now 13-5 for the season and 10-2 in the RMAC, while Colorado Mines is 11-2 and Black Hills State 9-2 to make up the top three in the conference with about a third of the season remaining.Chadron State is 3-16 and 3-10.
Although Saragoza made another trey in the second quarter to give her 15 points at halftime, she was pretty much a non-entity the rest of the game. She seldom touched the ball again and took just two more shots in the second half, made one of them and finished with 17 points.
As the final score indicates, the Eagles pretty well matched the Rangers’ point production following Saragoza’s opening spree.
Regis led 19-13 at the end of the first quarter. Chadron State got within two-points at 26-24 midway in the second quarter, but never completely caught up. The Rangers led 36-28 at halftime.
The third quarter was a slow one for the hosts. They got almost no “good” looks and made only two of 10 field goal attempts while falling behind 49-35 heading into the fourth quarter.
The Eagles cut the margin to 59-52 midway in the fourth, but were outscored 12-6 the rest of the way even though Emily Achter and Liberty Line hit CSC’s only 3-pointers of the game in the final 2:30 minutes.
For the game, Regis connected on 26 of 50 field goal attempts and were eight of 18 from behind the arc while the Eagles were 24 of 57 from the field and just two of 15 from long range. Regis had 32 rebounds, one more than CSC. Both teams had 19 turnovers and were called for 19 fouls.
Saragoza’s 17 points led her team in scoring while three teammates—Erin Fry with 13, Sam Deem with 12 and Josey Ryan with 11—also scored in double digits.
Eagles’ standout Shay Power was the game’s high scorer with 21 points and high rebounder with eight. Next on the CSC scoring list were center Riley Aioni and alternate guard Kadyn Comer with seven points apiece.
Regis—Athena Saragoza 17, Erin Fry 13, Sam Deem 12, Josey Ryan 11, Erin Stroberg 8, Kyla Frenchers 6, Morgan Smith 4. Totals: 26-50 (8-18) 11-18 71 points, 32 rebounds, 19 turnovers.
Chadron State—Shay Powers 21, Riley Alono 7, Kadyn Comer 7, Claudia Dollinger 5, Liberty Line 5, Allison Olsen 4, Emily Achter 3, Samiyah Worrell 2, Olivia Waufle 2, Awoti Akoi 2. Totals: 24-57 (2-15) 8-12 58 points, 31 rebounds, 19 turnovers.
Regis 19 17 13 22 —-71
Chadron State 13 15 7 23 —-58
3-pointers: Regis—Saragoza 5, Fry, Ryan Deem, all 1. CSC—Achter 1, Line 1.