Cowboys hold off Bears

by Richard Anderson
Wyoming Sports.org

CASPER -- Afam Muojeke wasn't 100 percent healthy, but he was good enough to lead the Wyoming Cowboys to a 76-70 win over Northern Colorado Saturday in the Wyoming Shootout.

The Cowboys (5-4) appeared to have the game in hand, leading 50-40 with 10 minutes left, but Northern Colorado's Devon Beitzel scored eight straight to cut the lead to two. Wyoming answered with 12 points from Muojeke and five points each from Waddell and JayDee Luster to weather the storm.

"I thought we executed out of time outs really well; I thought we grew up a little bit," Wyoming coach Heath Schroyer said. "We were able to execute coming down the stretch and did some things we hadn't been able to do up until this point."

Muojeke was 8 of 8 from the free-throw line in the final 42 seconds of the game. The difference came from the free-throw line, as Wyoming was 31 of 43, including 17 of 23 in the second half. Northern Colorado hit 10 of 18 free throws, but just 3 of 10 in the second half.

Muojeke, the team's leading scorer at 17.0 points a game, saw his first action in over two weeks after suffering a knee injury on Nov. 25, missing three of the team's previous four games. He was just 2 of 11 from the field, but 11 of 12 from the free-throw line. He also grabbed six rebounds.

Muojeke said his knee was still only about 80 percent healthy, but he wasn't worrying about his knee on Saturday.

"I just wanted to give the team leadership," he said. "The shots weren't falling, so I just tried to get my team points from the line and rebounding."

Beitzel led the Bears (8-2) with 25 points, followed by Chris Kaba with 18 and Will Figures with 10.

"It is a really disappointing loss," Northern Colorado coach Tad Boyle said. "That was a winnable game right there. We didn't play well at all. We missed key free throws in the second half."
Waddell scored 13 for Wyoming and Desmar Jackson added 11.

"It was a really good win," Schroyer said. "They are a very good team and are very well coached. This is a very quality win for us and one that hopefully can continue to propel us into playing better and better going into conference play."

The Cowboys will return to action Tuesday when they face No. 9 Tennessee in Knoxville.