ALBUQUERQUE, N.M — Junior Cherise Beynon added yet another impressive milestone to her season stats on Wednesday night as she tallied the first triple-double for a Lobo since 1979 in UNM’s 81-64 victory over Air Force in WisePies Arena – The Pit. Beynon posted 20 points, 12 rebounds and 12 assists to lead four Lobos in scoring in double figures on the night.
The game also marks Beynon’s 10th this season in which she has broken the 20-point threshold. She adds the achievement to her 1,000th point and 500th rebound which she collected against Nevada on Jan. 28.
“Cherise was good, especially offensively,” head coach Mike Bradbury said. “She got a good handle of the game early on and scored for us early.
“[Overall] I think we came out with the right frame of mind. We had the proper approach mentally to this game and we needed that. I thought for the most part we did well defensively. We lost our discipline a couple times but for the most part, we were pretty good defensively,” Bradbury said.
Freshman Hannah Sjerven followed Beynon with a career-high 18 points in 19 minutes to go along with six rebounds. Sjerven was near perfect on the night going 7-for-8 from the floor including 4-for-5 from the free-throw line. Senior Richelle van der Keijl, who continues to chase 1,000 career points added 14 to her season total and now sits at 876 while adding six rebounds.
The fourth and final Lobo to hit double-digits was junior Laneah Bryan who boasted another near-perfect performance from the floor to total a career-high 14 points. Bryan went 4-for-5 on the day including 3-of-4 from behind the arc while adding three more from the stripe (3-8).
The teams were evenly matched in the first quarter, both getting out to slow starts. The Lobos got out to a 6-0 lead before Air Force came back to tie it 8-8 at the 3:58 mark. The teams traded baskets until the score was tied 19-19 with 10 seconds left in the quarter before Beynon nailed a three with two seconds left to put the Lobos on top 22-19 at the quarter break.
Air Force hit back-to-back threes to open the second quarter and take a 25-22 lead before UNM went off on a 15-0 run to make it 37-25 with 2:06 left in the half. The Lobos stretched the run to 19-3 to get out to a 41-28 advantage (13 points) before Air Force’s leading scorer Mariah Forde scored from behind the arc at the buzzer to cut the UNM lead to 10 (41-31).
The Lobos continued their streak in the third when, with a 55-43 lead with 3:39 left in the frame, UNM went on an 11-0 run sparked by a layup from Alex Lapeyrolerie to close the quarter up by 23, 66-43.
UNM finished the game strong getting out to a 26-point advantage in the fourth quarter before the eventual 81-64 final. UNM was led by Sjerven in the fourth quarter who posted eight points in the frame.
The game marked the Lobos’ seventh regular-season game this season scoring over 80 points. Overall, UNM outshot Air Force 52.8 percent (28-53) to 35.6 percent (21-59) while outrebounding the Falcons 44-26.
The Lobos also outscored the Falcons in the paint (46-12) off the bench (35-11) and on the fast break (28-7) despite going just 52.6 percent from the charity stripe (20-38) compared to 83.3 percent for Air Force (15-18).
UNM gets its first bye this Saturday and returns to action on Wednesday, Feb. 15 at Boise State before hosting Fresno State in its Play4Kay pink game on Saturday, Feb. 18.