Dixie State made its Western Athletic Conference debut, but it was a debut that the Trailblazers will like to quickly forget as they dropped an 82-49 road decision at UT Rio Grande Valley on Friday night inside the UTRGV Fieldhouse.

Dixie State (4-4/0-1 WAC) drew first blood with a Cameron Gooden lay-in just 49 seconds into play, the Trailblazers' first points as a member of the WAC, and DSU owned an early 5-4 lead following an Andre Mulibea 3-pointer.

However the game would quickly flip in favor of the Vaqueros (7-3/1-0 WAC), who rattled off 15-straight points as part of a 19-2 run to bolt to a 23-7 lead just seven-plus minutes in.

Hampered by 18 first half turnovers, including eight miscues over those first seven minutes of play, the Trailblazers saw their deficit swell to as many as 23 points before closing the period with an 11-4 spurt to cut the UTRGV lead to 41-24 at the intermission.

Things did not get much better for Dixie State in the second half as UTRGV opened the frame with a 14-2 run over a span of four minutes to extend to a 55-26 advantage. The Vaqueros would cruise home from there and send the Trailblazers to their third-straight loss.

Gooden was the lone Trailblazer to score in double figures as he finished with 13 points on 3-of-6 from the floor and 7-of-8 at the line. Frank Staine added nine points and Isaiah Pope chipped in eight points on 3-of-5 shooting off the bench.

Dixie State shot 34.6 percent from the floor (18-of-52) overall, which included a paltry 1-of-14 from the perimeter as DSU misfired on its final 13 3-point attempts after the Mulibea trey. DSU was also outrebounded by a 46-36 count.

However the story for the Trailblazers was the turnovers as Dixie State finished with a season-high 28 miscues, which tied for the third-most in a single game in the program's NCAA era, this after DSU had only seven total turnovers in the New Mexico loss two nights earlier. UTRGV scored 30 points off of those DSU turnovers, compared to only 14 Blazer points off of 17 Vaquero turnovers.

Meanwhile, the 49 points scored by Dixie State on Friday night tied for the fourth-fewest points in a game in the program's four-year era (L, 49-53 at CSU-Pueblo; 11/25/11), and were the fewest scored since DSU tallied just 55 points in the 2016-17 season opener at UC San Diego (L, 55-62; 11/11/16).

UTRGV connected on 32-of-71 from the floor (.451) and went 8-of-30 (.267) from beyond the arc. Sean Rhea led four Vaquero players in double figures with 16 points.

The two teams will complete the two-game WAC set on Saturday night at 5 p.m. (MT).