Breaunna Gillen led four Trailblazers in double figures with 23 points, while Maddie Warren added 22, to lead a resolute Utah Tech women's basketball team to a hard-fought 87-77 road win at in-state rival Southern Utah on Thursday night at the America First Event Center.
 
The Trailblazers pushed their season-long win streak to five-straight to improve to 14-9 overall, 8-4 in Western Athletic Conference play. 

How it happened 
Utah Tech wasted little time setting the tone for the night as the Trailblazers hit five of their first six shots, all lay-ups, to take a quick 10-2 lead and force a Thunderbird timeout just three minutes in. 
 
SUU (6-15/4-8 WAC) came out of the timeout and scored the game's next six points to make a 10-8 game. Warren stopped the T-Bird rally with a pull-up 3-pointer, which triggered a 12-5 Blazer spurt over the final 4:44 of the first quarter that ended with Utah Tech leading 22-13.  
 
The Blazers quickly extended that advantage to 14 points after a Maggie McCord jumper and Calyn Dallas trey on consecutive Utah Tech possession to open the second period.
 
Southern Utah clapped back with nine-straight points to pull to within five, only to see Utah Tech methodically push its lead back to double digits before taking a 44-36 lead into the intermission.
 
However the Utah Tech mood was a somber when just before the halftime horn, sophomore guard Macie Warren suffered an injury that forced her to miss the rest of the game.
 
The Trailblazers came out of halftime break with a sense of purpose to play for their fallen teammate, and McCord got it started with a perimeter jumper that put Utah Tech up 11. Maddie Warren and Gillen then combined to score the Blazers' next 10 points as Utah Tech saw its lead swell to 57-44 at the midway point of the third quarter.
 
SUU would mount another charge to again make it a two-possession game at 59-54 after a Daylani Ballena bucket with 1:42 left in the frame.
 
Gillen stopped the run with a pair of free throws, while she and Dallas both nailed 3-pointers late in the quarter to extend the Utah Tech lead again to 11 at 67-56 heading to the fourth quarter.
 
The T-Birds made one final push in the fourth, thanks to the hot shooting hand of Samantha Johnston, who hit four 3-pointers in the stanza to help pare the Blazer lead to four at 79-75 with 1:51 remaining.
 
However that would be as close as SUU would get Utah Tech went a perfect 8-of-8 at the charity stripe in the closing moments. Gillen drained two charity tosses with 39.4 seconds to go, then after a Ballena basket, Dallas scored the game's final six points at the foul line to salt away a Trailblazer win and a season sweep of their in-state rivals. 
 
Numbers to know
Gillen scored 15 of her 23 points in the second half and finished with six assists, four rebounds and two steals. Gillen knocked down eight of her 18 shot attempts and went 6-of-6 at the line.
 
Meanwhile Maddie Warren enjoyed another impressive shooting night as she went 9-of-12 from the floor with a pair of 3-pointers. Warren also added four boards and one assist to her final stat line.
 
McCord finished one rebound shy of a double-double as she tallied 16 points on 7-of-14 shooting and had a team-high nine rebounds. 
 
Dallas wound up with 14 points and seven rebounds. The freshman not only went 6-of-6 at the line late in the game, she also went 3-of-4 from the floor with two treys. 
 
Utah Tech shot better at least 50 percent from the floor in three of four quarters en route to posting a 53.4 percent clip (31-of-58) overall, which included a 7-of-17 (.412) effort from the perimeter.
 
The lone quarter the Blazers shot below 50 percent was the fourth, when they went just 5-of-13 (.385) from the floor. However they blunted that by going 9-of-10 at the line and finished the night 18-of-22 (.818) at the stripe.
 
Johnston led all scorers with 24 points, with half of those points coming in the fourth quarter. SUU hit on 44.1 percent (30-of-68) of its shots and went 10-of-25 (.400) from beyond the arc.
 
Up next
Utah Tech will wrap up its current four-game road swing with a trip down to the Inland Empire for a Saturday date at California Baptist. Tip-off inside the CBU Events Center in Riverside is set for 1 p.m. (PT).