Cowboys battle to get win

by Richard Anderson
Wyoming Sports.org

To say that Saturday's win over Northern Colorado was big for the Wyoming Cowboys might be an understatement.

Granted, the Bears aren't world beaters, but they are a solid team with wins over Mountain West Conference teams Colorado State and Air Force, and were 8-1 going into Saturday night's Wyoming Shootout contest.

For Wyoming, it had been a tough go at it this preseason, with disappointing losses to South Dakota State, Denver, Monmouth and Hampton. Then earlier in the week, transfer guard Thomas Manzano left the program for personal reasons.

"This is the biggest win so far, I believe," Wyoming sophomore Afam Muojeke said.

The Bears, 1-1 in the Big Sky Conference, fell to Montana State, but beat Montana on the road last week and were ranked 22nd in the country in the Mid-Major poll.

"I definitely think this is our biggest win," Wyoming sophomore guard JayDee Luster said. "They are a really good team. They already beat two of our conference teams and they are Top 25 for Mid-Majors. It was definitely a big win."

While the Cowboys have certainly struggled at times this season, of their four losses, they have been outscored by an average of eight points a game and two of those losses were by three points or less points.

"We felt like we could pull together and win these games," Luster said. "All of our losses have been pretty close. It was just a matter of us making a play or them making the plays. Tonight, we came out and made the plays at the end to win the game."

Wyoming sophomore Adam Waddell said they showed a little fight in them that they haven't always had this season.

"It was one of those games where we got down, shouldn't have got down, but we fought back and then we had to fight to keep the lead," Waddell said. "We came out with a big win. Northern Colorado is a good team."

The Cowboys appeared to be in the driver's seat, leading by 10 points with 10 minutes left, but saw the Bears respond with eight straight points -- all by guard Devon Beitzel. Northern Colorado, however, never caught the Cowboys and big plays by Waddell and strong free throw shooting by Muojeke enabled Wyoming to weather the storm.

"We made some defensive stops and we were able to battle," Waddell said. "With Afam back, that's one more asset that we have as a team."