The DU women’s basketball team managed to pull out two home wins over the weekend albeit both games were close. The Pioneers first took on Troy, a Sun Belt competitor, on Thursday in Magness Arena at 5 p.m. and were victorious in overtime with a score of 77-76. On Sunday at 3 p.m. also in Magness, coming from behind after the first half the Pioneers pulled out a win over University of Louisiana-Lafayette, 60-52.

With these two wins the Pioneers advance their record to 9-14, 4-8 SBC and still have a chance to get back into the race for the Sunbelt title in March. A couple wins on the road might help them as well, considering they have only won one road game all season.

“We still have six games, two at home and four on the road. You never know what’s going to happen,” said head coach Pam Tanner of their chance at the SBC tournament. “The League is upside down this year. Middle Tennessee has had a three game losing streak.”

Thursday’s game against Troy resulted in overtime due to senior Alisha Godette’s two lay-ups in the last 31 seconds to tie the Pioneers and the Trojans at 70-70. During overtime Godette scored another two points, Celena Otero made a jumper and Nnenna Akotaobi and Brooke Meyer each made their free throw shots to clinch the game.

The Trojans (10-13, 3-9 SBC) led almost the entire game but were out-rebounded 40-35 and out-blocked 6-2 by the Pioneers. The Pioneers shooting percentage was 47.4% and the Trojans at 42.9%, making it a close shooting match.

Top scorers for DU were junior center Sara Bents with 14 points, senior forward Sara Benham with 13 points, while Akotaobi and Otero added 11 each. Bents also had eight rebounds and three blocks. Meanwhile, the Pioneers can thank Godette for her outstanding performance in the last crucial minutes of the game.

Sunday’s game happened to be just as exciting as Thursdays with the Pioneers coming from behind after half time to maintain a lead and end up winning the contest. The Louisiana-Lafayette Ragin’ Cajuns (5-18, 1-11 SBC) led 23-19 at half time, but quickly into the second half the Pioneers began to take control of the game. Meyer scored her first points of the game in the second half and ended up having a team high 13 points overall, three of which were three-pointers.

“My scoring comes within the motion of the game,” said Meyer of her not scoring points until the second half. “These last two games we had a big team effort and winning two games has given us a lot of motivation. Protecting the home court is always big.”

Both Godette and Bents had nine rebounds each and the Pioneers made 10-15 three pointers compared to the Ragin’ Cajuns measly 2-12 threes.

“Brooke hit some big shots this game. Mason hit some too, and it was nice to see her on her feet again after coming out of a concussion,” said Tanner. “Sara Bents is playing huge for us, making lay-ups, cleaning up the glass. If we didn’t have Bents we couldn’t have won these last two games.”

The Pioneers are on the road this Thursday, Feb. 14th at 4 p.m. in Denton, Texas against North Texas. Then on Saturday, Feb. 16th, at 4:30 p.m. in Monroe, Louisiana. They go up against Louisiana-Monroe, who they lost to at home earlier this season.