March 15, 2001

Box Score

LOS ANGELES - Kinesha Davis hit two free throws with 12 second remaining and scored 20 points, 14 in the second half, as the UNLV women's basketball team escaped with a 59-56 win over Loyola Marymount in the first round of the Women's National Invitation Tournament at Gersten Pavilion on Thursday.

The Lady Rebels (19-9) advance to the second round of the WNIT where they will face the winner of Friday's Oklahoma State-North Texas matchup. The date and location of that game will be announced Friday, also.

UNLV held the Lions (21-10) without a field goal for the final 7:03 of the first half to gain a 27-16 advantage at the break. But the Lions responded, opening the second half with an 11-4 run of their own to pull within four.

From that point, the two squads went toe-to-toe, nearly matching bucket for bucket over the next five minutes. LMU finally took its first lead of the game at the 5:00 mark on a long three-pointer from Raelen Self to go up 50-49.

The exchanges continued down the stretch until Kate Murray missed a pair of free throws with 54.4 seconds left that would have kept LMU within one. The Lions were forced to foul, leading to Davis' heroics.

Alongside Davis, Linda Fr?hlich talied yet another double-double with 14 points and 13 rebounds. Tiana Sanders also rolled into double figures off the bench, setting season-highs with 10 points and six boards.

Despite shooting only 36.2 percent, four Lions reached double figures, led by Murray's 14.