Losers of five straight entering the game, the Wolverines used great team energy, some stifling second hand defense and big shots during key situations to secure the win.

“I feel like we’re right there, and we’re playing good basketball, but we haven’t been able to put it all together. But tonight, we did, for the most part,” said Wolverine coach Dan Nielson. “…It’s been sort of like whack-a-mole in that when we’d score, we wouldn’t defend, and when we’d defend, we wouldn’t score. So it wasn’t pretty tonight, but we did enough things consistently to come out on top. We really needed this one.”

Leading the way for the Wolverines on Thursday, much as she has all season, was Amanda Barcello, who scored a team-high 17 points while adding to her team’s stellar second half defensive pressure, among other contributions. As mentioned, it was the type of effort Nielson has become accustomed to from the BYU transfer, who has shown significant strides since arriving at Utah Valley three seasons ago.

“She was in a tough spot, and didn’t have a lot of the confidence she has now after transferring from BYU,” Nielson said. “But she just keeps getting better and better every year, and she’s stepped up huge for us all year long. When she gets it going offensively, we’re a very tough team to beat.”

Barcello has averaged 14.8 points per game this season and is recently coming off a career-high 31 point performance in an 85-75 loss to Cal Baptist.

“My confidence comes from my teammates and my coaches,” Barcello said. “I’m so grateful for everyone on this team for everything and every success I have is because of them. My mentality is to just let it fly, so I’ve been sticking to that and hoping for the wins every game.”

Congruent to her last name, Barcello has proven to be a dead-eye shooter from behind the arc, much like her older brother, Alex Barcello, who proved to be a 3-point assassin during his time playing for the Cougars.

But as mentioned, Barcello is more than happy to defer to her teammates, with several of those teammates stepping up big in Thursday’s win over the Texans.

Playing prominently in her new role off the bench was Kylee Mabry, who scored 12 big points while doing most of her best work in the second half.

“I’m proud of Ky,” Nielson said of Mabry. “She’s had some tough games shooting the ball, but it was great to see her aggressive at the rim with some confidence. Her defense really fuels her offense, and you saw that happen for her tonight. I don’t know why that’s always the case with players, but it almost always is, and it definitely was with Ky tonight.”

Trailing 38-33 at the half, the Wolverines used full-court pressure to take back the lead rather quickly and then extend it to 54-51 entering the fourth quarter. That fourth quarter saw the pressure perhaps increase as Utah Valley quickly pushed its lead to as many as 11 points, forcing Tarleton State to issue a lot of fouls down the stretch in hopes of staging a comeback.

“I wasn’t happy with the first half, we were letting them split (our zone) a lot, but in the second half we were much better,” Nielson said. “Tarleton State was very well-prepared for it coming out, but we kept with it, and it paid off big for us in the second half.”

Also playing big in the win was point guard Kaylee Headrick, who scored 14 points, which included a big corner 3-pointer to truly separate the Wolverines from the hard-charging Texans down the stretch.

“That kid does everything and she’s tough as nails,” Nielson said. “She has some stiches in her chin right now, a cut on her hand and she just plays her butt off every game. We’d be in trouble if we didn’t have her out there doing everything she does for us.”

With the win Utah Valley improves to 10-10 on the season and 3-6 in WAC Conference play. The hope now is to parlay the momentum gained from Thursday’s win into more wins and a strong close to the season.

“I liked our energy, and yeah, you always hope to keep improving and to play your best at the end of the year,” Nielson said. “Hopefully we can maintain the confidence and understand that we don’t need to play perfect to get these tough wins. I’m happy with what I saw tonight.”