Fairbanks nets 25 as Wolverines improve to 8-1

OREM — Utah Valley can't seem to get enough of a good thing.

Robyn Fairbanks scored 25 points and three others scored in double figures as the Wolverines improved to 8-1 with a 74-63 win over Southern Utah on Thursday night.

The hot start and their six-game winning streak are both school records for the Wolverines since jumping to Div. I four seasons ago. It was also the Wolverines' first-ever win over SUU.

"I told the kids tonight, each time we do something different, it's special and it's historical," UVSC coach Cathy Nixon said.

Fairbanks, who leads the Wolverines in scoring at 23 points a game, has averaged 25.4 points in her last five games.

"She's impossible to guard when you get her on the move," Nixon said of the sophomore, who hit 7-of-14 from the field (2-of-3 from the 3-point line) and 9-of-12 from the foul line. "The things she creates for herself, I think is what makes her that good, production-wise."

The Wolverines took advantage of five early Southern Utah turnovers to build a seven-point lead on a bucket by Ashley Grimm, who finished with 11 points, with 11:18 left in the first half.

Two minutes later the lead was down to six, but the T-Birds responded with a 9-2 run to take their first lead of the game at 21-20 on a basket by Anne Westwood with 6:13 left in the first half.

Ten seconds later, Grimm scored to give the Wolverines the lead for good.

Southern Utah, which lost by two at the buzzer at New Mexico State on Monday, trailed by one point with four minutes left but managed just three more points the rest of the half.

Grimm scored the last five points in the Wolverines' 11-3 run to end the half for a nine-point lead — the Wolverines' largest lead of the half.

"That was the ballgame," SUU coach Steve Hodson said of the UVSC run.

Nixon agreed.

"It was big," she said. "We knew SUU is a team if you let them hang around — the games they have been successful in, they keep it close. We knew we needed to have one of those runs where we could spread the game a little bit. It was a good thing, they did make a run in the second half."

The T-Birds shot 54.5 percent from the field in the first half, but the Wolverines scored 14 points off 14 SUU turnovers.