Cold shooting on Saturday night doomed the Troy women’s basketball team as they fell in a tightly contested 70-67 contest against UT-Arlington.

Despite the poor shooting effort, Troy (12-8, 7-4) had their share of chances to steal the win from the Mavericks.

The Trojans’ defense was stout, forcing UT-Arlington (11-9, 5-6) into 31 turnovers, but Troy’s offense couldn’t take advantage, scoring just 17 points off of those turnovers on their way to a 28 percent shooting night from the field.

Troy fell behind by as many as 10 points in the second half, but was able to chip away at the lead to 64-62 with just over two minutes to go in the game.

With 35 seconds to go in the game and down 68-67, Troy had a chance to take the lead but came up empty.

“Our biggest problem was scoring with numbers,” Troy head coach Chanda Rigby said.  “We had 10 chances to score on numbers in the first half that we missed.  Van Dijk also played well for them and they used their size really well.”

Troy’s shooting numbers were especially bad in the first half, going just 19 percent from the field despite forcing UT-Arlington into 20 turnovers.

With the Troy offense reeling, the Mavericks put together a 14-0 run to go ahead of the Trojans 25-11.

But Troy was able to stay in the game thanks to a 10-0 run of their own to close out the first half.

Rebekah Van Dijk led UT-Arlington with 19 points on 9-of-14 shooting and collected a game-high 12 rebounds.

LaShanda Green also contributed 14 points for the Mavericks, including going 8-of-8 from the free throw line.

With 7.9 seconds to go in the game, Green hit two key free throws to push the Mavericks’ lead to three points.

Contrary to its poor numbers from the field, Troy shot well from behind the free throw line, making 19-of-21 shots.

Each team also enjoyed success from downtown, hitting six 3-pointers each.

Ronita Garrett recorded yet another double-double, scoring 20 points and grabbing 11 rebounds.

Leading scorer Ashley Beverly-Kelley scored a game-high 22 points and went 10-of-11 from the free throw line.

And Aissata Maiga was the third and final Trojans to reach double digits as she contributed 10 points in the game.