ST. GEORGE — Cameron Gooden became the ninth member of Utah Tech University’s 1,000-point club as he scored 26 points to help lead Utah Tech men’s basketball to its first conference road win of the season.
The Trailblazers triumphed 88-81 at the University of Texas-Rio Grande Valley on Thursday night inside the UTRGV Fieldhouse.
Thursday’s win also halted three streaks, including the Blazers’ three-game losing skid heading into the game, a seven-game road Western Athletic Conference slide this season and a 12-game WAC road losing streak dating back to last season. UT’s last road victory came in a 79-65 win at Chicago State Jan. 29, 2022.
According to a Utah Tech Athletics news release, the Trailblazers (12-16 overall, 4-11 WAC) never trailed as they got off to a hot start, knocking down their first five shots with three 3-pointers to bolt out to a quick 15-6 lead four minutes into play.
Gooden, who was making his final trip to his home state in a Utah Tech uniform, scored eight of those 15 points, including consecutive 3-pointers, which forced the Vaqueros (14-15, 4-11) to call an early timeout.
Utah Tech would see its lead swell to double digits at 26-15 after an Isaiah Pope bucket at the 11:10 mark, only to see UTRGV rattle off a 10-2 run to make it a one-possession game following a Justin Johnson jumper nearly 4 minutes later.
Frank Staine finally stopped the drought with a trey, then after Johnson answered with a three of his own, the Blazers went on a 12-4 spurt to extend back to a double-digit advantage and would take a 51-42 lead into the halftime break.
UT blistered the nets in the first half, shooting 66.7 percent (16-of-24) in the stanza, including a 7-of-12 clip (.583) from the perimeter, the news release said.
The Blazers maintained that shooting touch coming out of the locker room, hitting five of their first eight shots in outscoring UTRGV 14-5 to begin the second half. Gooden provided the exclamation point on the rally with another 3-pointer as Utah Tech opened up an 18-point lead at 65-47 with just over 16 minutes to play.
But the Vaqueros weren’t finished, even after UT built a 77-59 lead with 9 minutes remaining. Instead, the home team rattled off a 17-3 run to trim the deficit to 80-76 with 4:08 remaining.
UTRGV held the Trailblazers to just one field goal over that 5-minute stretch, while Johnson accounted for seven of the Vaqueros’ 17 points, but it was an Adante’ Holiman trifecta that made a two-possession.
However, that would be as close as UTRGV would get as Utah Tech took care of business at the foul line, hitting on 8-of-10 of its attempts. Meanwhile, the Trailblazer defense limited the Vaqueros to just one field goal, and got two big steals from Staine and Pope in the final minute, to lock up the road victory.
Gooden enjoyed his homecoming to the Lone Star State as he connected on 8-of-10 of his shots, which included a school record-tying six 3-pointers. In addition, the senior collected five rebounds and three assists. Gooden now has 1,001 career points (13.3 ppg) and in the process moved into sixth place on UT’s career 3-pointers made (102) list, and vaulted to seventh all-time in career field goals made (324).
In all, four Trailblazers scored in double figures as Pope finished with 18 points on 5-of-9 shooting and went 8-of-10 at the line. Pope also collected seven rebounds and five assists.
Jacob Nicolds added 16 points and five rebounds, while Tanner Christensen chipped in 12 on 3-of-3 from the floor and 6-of-8 at the line.
Utah Tech will wrap up its 2022-23 road slate with its first-ever game against WAC newcomer UT Arlington this Saturday at 1 p.m. (MT).